


godfall

by daemonicurges



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Injustice: Gods Among Us
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Body Dysphoria, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Intersex, M/M, Mpreg, Multi, Omega Damian Wayne, Past Sexual Abuse, Power Imbalance, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-05-18 13:10:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14853378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daemonicurges/pseuds/daemonicurges
Summary: He had made a choice that night in Arkham. To stand with Clark was to stand against his father. And he had done so, proudly. Without a moment of regret.But you know what they say about hindsight.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings before you proceed with this fic: 
> 
> This is Injustice based, which means Clark Kent is a manipulative abuser who doesn't seem capable of genuinely loving anyone any more. He's a man broken beyond repair and is now ripping everyone around him down as he falls. What happened between him and Damian was not righpt, as he was not in any place to consent and considered Clark as a father to him, but there will be a lot of Damian insisting that it was and it was for his own good.
> 
> Some omegas and alphas are intersex. "Male" omegas and "female" alphas are both capable of becoming pregnant and impregnating others, though it's considered to be pretty rare and oftentimes require hormone therapy. It's not uncommon for these children to be raised as the opposite gender or as gender nonconforming as they're virtually identical until puberty, when secondary sex characteristics begin to develop. Trans Alphas and Omegas are absolutely a thing. Damian identifies as male and was raised as an Alpha by the League of Assassins due to archaic traditions, but he's an omega with male secondary sex characteristics. Dysphoria will factor in.
> 
> Bruce is not a good dad but he will try to be better.
> 
> There are no solid ships as of yet but I've got some ideas.

When he had first arrived in Wayne Manor, they made no effort to sex him. No point, he was already ten and didn’t need someone to dictate his clothing or help him bathe and dress. It seemed clear that the boy was Alpha. He was strong, brash, and commanding. He was nothing less than Talia’s perfection, the impossible product between two Alphas.

And the boy had never known any better.

They cited his development to being a late bloomer. He’d been late at thirteen, but that hadn’t mattered. Despite being smaller than them he could keep pace and fight with the best of them.  When everything had happened, Kal suggested that perhaps it was stress induced. 

Then he was overdue at fifteen. They had decided that perhaps he wasn’t an Alpha, but a beta. A full physical would have told them for sure, but Damian had been taught to never allow it. It is undignified, his mother’s voice echoed, despite all the indignities she had put him through after each and every brutality that was inflicted on him. Invasive procedures, organ transplants, everything he could endure and more. Yet he threw a tantrum when they tried, demanded to be left alone and allowed his privacy, and that wish was respected. No matter how reluctant they were to abide by it. 

They’d decided he was infertile by the time his seventeenth birthday came and went. Diana had been the one to sit down with him, discussing his lack of development in frank terms that he could appreciate, keeping her sympathy to a minimum. The news was something he’d met with a mixture of relief - to finally know the cause was a burden lifted from his shoulders, and unexpectedly, profound disappointment. Heats and ruts were treachery of the body itself, he’d never wanted one and was thankful to be told they weren’t going to be an issue. 

He would never have heirs of his own. The line - his bloodline - would die a natural death here. A problem, Diana had assured him gently, that he would have plenty of time to work around. He was a smart boy, able to stun the smartest men on Earth to silence with his frank and honest suggestions. This would be nothing in comparison. 

"And you won't face this alone," she had said, taking his face in hand and kissed his forehead. It was a gesture so loving and maternal his heart  _ached_ with feeling, her words lifting his spirit without even trying. "The Justice League stands with you, Damian. For whatever battles you must fight."

Now, at eighteen, he is alone.

Victor Zsasz has been gutted. Alfred's death has finally been avenged -- but he feels no better. There is no catharsis to the action he had taken, merely an emptiness where he felt his heart had once been.

And Damian was off the super pills for the first time since he turned thirteen. For the first time since then, he felt vulnerable. Too human, too  _soft_ , in comparison to the metahumans that he called family. This was a useless body made even more useless by his own hand. The murmur in his heart was nothing,  _nothing_ , and they were fools for blowing an error in a test out of proportion. The medics onboard had warned him of the side-effects of abusing the pills, reminded him time and time again that it could kill him or warp his body irreparably -- but he hadn't listened.

It wasn’t an addiction. He’d argue until he was blue in the face that it wasn’t, he wasn’t addicted he just needed to have them to stand a chance of fighting any of their foes.

 He hadn’t listened, hadn’t heeded a single word. Now his heartbeat was irregular and every other breath hurts, the adrenaline rush of one too many at the wrong time was wreaking havoc on him. A simple recon mission to home had met with his vitals going haywire - Kal hadn't hesitated, he could tell from the sonic boom of his entrance that he'd flown straight from the Watchtower to here. The alien found him curled in the remnants of the Batcave, panting heavily and clenching the console so hard it cracked under his fingertips.

"Damian," Kal's hand had gripped his shoulder, strong and kind, _reassuring_ in a way he only ever could be. "This has gone on long enough. This is for your own good."

A detox was the last thing he wanted. Damian whirled to argue, ready to point out every flaw in this plan. That they're in no position to show weakness, that he can _handle this_ , but the action unbalanced his footing. Kal had him before he hit the ground, hauling him into his arms when his body failed to respond the way he needed it to, shaking his head slowly. "No more. Not again. You've done more than enough. it's time we got you cleaned up."

The first twenty-four hours was hell on Earth. Damian woke between bouts of fitful sleep, feeling nothing but tremors and dizziness wrack his mind and body as it worked the nanomachines from his system. The next, vomiting and physical aches as his muscles return to their original density, that endurance ebbing away. All the while a fever burns bright enough to catch him on fire, the body removing the nanomachines like a common flu but overworking itself to near death. He wakes up a few times to find Victor sponging sweat off his brow and chuckling at his pathetic attempts to insult him, ruffling his hair gently.

It's longer than days. He doesn't know how long he's been out, they ask him how long he's been using these enhancements and he doesn't even remember answering. Just an IV and oxygen being there and then being gone when he's up again. Sometimes it's Diana. Sometimes it's Hal, or Barry, but mostly it's Victor, who smiles faintly when he recognizes Damian's  _awake_ and ruffles his overlong hair affectionately. When Damian doesn't protest, he hops off the chair and settles onto the bed next to him, helping prop him up and onto his side when he can't find the energy to move.

“Easy, kiddo. Just here to make sure you’re okay. Should be all over tomorrow.”

Then he's drifting off again, face shoved against the cool metal of Victor’s robotic side, too tired to be bothered by the soft tapping of his fingers on projected keys. There’s an unspoken understand there, tell no one, and Vic won’t. This moment of vulnerability is as secret and safe as any he shared with Grayson, a brotherly bond he shares with  _none_ left living and one Cyborg values nearly as much as he does.

Duty pulls him away before long. The Insurgency is planning something again and he's not up to investigating - someone brings him water and leaves it on the table, but there's no one sitting in the chair beside him. 

The heat didn’t abate.

Instead it burned brighter, hotter, and in ways he’s never felt or wanted to feel before. He feels like he’s dying, his heart pounding so hard it leaves him breathless and his legs shaking. Panic takes hold -- this is an unfamiliar feeling, his body feels alien to him for the first time he can truly recall. His breath won't catch, the sweat trickling down his face feels like a torrent -- doesn’t know what to do, where to go. He lurches to his feet and stumbles immediately, his legs giving a wobbly shake he can't control. A hand catches the wall and digs, too weak to hold himself up without it, he follows it to the door on tentative and unsteady steps. Help, he needs help, this feels like dying and he can't. Not here. Not now.

The doors opens before he can reach it, his vision too hazy to make out the figure before him. He jolts back, hands dropping to feel for weapons that aren't there, ready to fight - but his balance tips too far and he's falling back until the stranger reaches forward and snags his arm. Holding him effortlessly from the floor.  

“Easy.” Kal-El's voice is soothing. Slowly, carefully, he pulls his charge up to his chest and wraps an arm around him. The fingers of his free hand gently brush through the sweat-soaked mess of dark hair, working slow circles. “Easy, Damian, it’s okay. It's just me. It'ss just me."

The teen grabs fistfuls of the Man of Steel’s cape, heaving with the effort it takes to breathe. He smells so good, too damn good, and Damian’s vaguely aware that his boxer shorts are plastered to his thighs with what he can only assume to be sweat because what else --

“Easy,” Clark repeats, and he misses the undercurrent of that voice. As Clark carefully scoops him up and draws him close. He misses the opportunist, the thought that turns the cogs in Superman’s mind. “Easy, let me take care of you.”

He isn’t sure what he says in turn. It might be Kal or it might be Father, just that he goes. He allows.

And he regrets.

 

 

 

_It was heat sickness, Damian. I took care of you. I had to do it._

Four days later he stumbles out of Superman’s chambers. Avoiding dirty looks and confused stares, avoiding the questions and the concerns. None ask him what happened, none  _dare_. The atmosphere in the Watchtower has darkened since his father's latest stunt and he's not terribly keen to test how far things will go before war breaks out again. After two showers he doesn't feel clean, and judging by the way Billy leans away from him as he sits him down to discuss approval ratings and the pockets of crime in Gotham, he doesn't think he smells it either.

He downs more superpills and shoves that pain aside.

 He and Kal never speak of it -- time doesn’t allow for them to, but he isn't sure he _could_ if pushed. He had to. Damian had - he doesn't remember much in the haze of fear he was  _dying_ and the fever, but he thinks he must have asked. Remembers a dubious ye - that's all he wants to. The memory is locked down and shoved aside, compartmentalized with every other difficult thing he doesn't dare process. The second he's given a clean bill of health he's sent on a mission to deal with some offshoot of the insurgency. Kal-El has his hands full dealing with the latest crisis facing the Earth.

By the time they have a moment to breathe, the Regime has fallen. There is no trial, only a sentencing. And there will never be an opportunity to speak.

Three months of hanging in restrains. For the second time he's left in limbo, waiting for the superpills to ebb out of his system, vomiting down himself when he can't bring himself to admit the weakness he feels. His father's new lackeys laugh at him, mocking him in his weakness -- thinking it payback for all the scathing remarks he'd thrown at them in his first few days when he was still bristling with enhanced strength, before he realized how futile it was to try to break out of these restraints. 

Withdrawal leaves him weak and trembling. Nausea keeps him settled.

 _Babybat ain't so tough now, is he? B_ lue Beetle quips when they finally bring him down. All teen arrogance and pride, undeserved and unwarranted. He suspects they're the same age, that this is someone new to the game and sure they can win it, and lets him have that moment... but had he the strength, he would shatter his skull then and there. Instead he hangs limply in the red one’s arms, sweating profusely, viciously nauseous and ready to tell them exactly where they can stick their comments, but they never make it that far. He grunts and that’s that, allowing them to carry him from the restraints to his new home.

A cell. 

He’ll probably be in here until he dies. They set him on a bench and step out -- the energy shield raises up behind them, and that’s that. This is home.

If he had the energy he’d admire the ingenuity that went into the design. As it is, all he wants to do is vomit his organs up and strangle the arrogant little beetle with them. With some effort, he sits upright, working his fingers through his tangled hair and wishing they’d had the decency to give him a shower first.

"You alright D-Wayne?" A familiar voice is muffled through the barrier separating them, a grin on his face -- but there’s concern in the way his brows are bunching together. Damian turns his head and sucks in a breath, feeling a sudden rush of relief at the sight of a familiar face.

“Been better,” he quips, his voice raw and tired. “But I still look better than you.”

Victor grins.

He grins back.

Beetle and Firestorm will probably have something nasty to say about them talking, but he doesn’t give a damn. They shouldn’t have put him across from the heart of the Regime if they didn’t want to hear his obnoxious chatter.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There’s less chatter than they expect. Damian starts getting headaches, migraines so bad he can’t do anything but bite the inside of his cheek and press the heels of his hands into his eyes.  He sleeps through the next four days solid, curled up in a ball. His stomach hurts and the smell of whatever they’re trying to serve him makes him choke. 

He’s vegetarian, he tries to say, but they don’t buy it. They don’t care and he guesses he shouldn’t expect them to, but the food doesn’t taste right and he can’t keep it down.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Batman doesn’t visit. Damian doesn’t expect him to. Nobody tells him what’s happening with Clark and he doesn’t want to know.

They let him out in gen pop for all of twenty minutes before a particularly animalistic metahuman grabbed him by the hair and a hand grabbing for his pants.  _I didn't think they put omegas in with the rest of us_ , and he’s breaking their snout straight into their brain. People are shouting and screaming but a point has been made, Damian whips around and wields bare fists - his body is skinny and his bronze skin is ashen, but he is unbent and unbroken.

"Whose  _next_?!" He demanded, and when none stepped forward to the challenge, he'd shouted again. " _Because this is what you get_!"

They don’t let him out after that. Another two days of solitary, and then a lifetime in those four little walls. He’s fine with that. He can deal with that. The first night back in his room, after his shower, he's tries sniffing himself. Uneasy, feeling like a secret has spilled forth and he has no way to put it back, he isn't sure how to handle the world finding out what he has barely processed.

He breaks a piece of his dinner tray off and slices his hair short as compromise. The sides get shorter than the top, it's a messy style and one that leaves the guards in a tizzy, but he has no regrets when it's done. Beetle snips that he’s gaining weight and he flips him off, promising to work it off by beating his ass black and blue.

They ignore the nausea when it rises again, worse than before. They tease (mock) him for it and he does his best to not give them the satisfaction of seeing his weakness.

 

* * *

 

 

Damian’s teaching Victor how to play Questions, talking louder than he needs to specifically to irritate the squabbling scientist and his apprentice. The dinner trays (unbreakable this time, they worry about him making shivs but Damian would never kill one of the guards just doing their jobs - they don’t buy that) are pushed through and he’s not hungry for the slop they serve, but he needs to eat something. Anything. Nothing is staying down and he can’t deal with it anymore.

"Is that really a game, or just a way to piss off your friends?" Victor finally snaps, sixty-three questions in. Damian’s grinning at him, all smug and full of himself, and the Cyborg throws both of his hands up with a defeated sigh.

“Can’t it be both?” 

“Could you be any more obnoxious?”

He casually flips the older man the finger, pushing himself off the cot and onto his feet --  abruptly his vision begins to swim. He takes a step forward to try to catch himself on the wall, but then legs are crumpling underneath him. Something short circuits, something isn’t right. The world is sideways and then upside down,  abruptly blackening at the edges. He realizes that he's fallen, that he can't move, and that this might be a seizure.

Victor laughs for a moment, the stiff laugh that says  _that isn't funny, Damian, get up_. Until he realizes that this is no joke, this is not an act. Then he's on his feet, shouting down the hall. "Guard!"

No one replies.

"Guards!" Louder now, an edge of panic. "Help! Help! Jesus, do your  _god damn jobs_ _! Warden! **TURPIN!"**_

Someone’s finally coming by, they feel too damn far away, and then the wall is dropping and someone’s shouting for a medic. He can’t move, can’t think, numbly aware that his body is moving against his will and something is wrong.

There’s a shadow in the cell. The world is blurry and out of focus, he can’t see -- he’s bending and carefully lifting Damian into his arms. Everything is muddled, he can’t even thrash, the voice echoes and fades. “It’s gonna be alright, son. Easy, easy, it’s going to be okay.

 

* * *

 

 

When the medical staff bring an unconscious into the hospital wing, Shonda Kinsolving thinks that perhaps she doesn't get  _paid_ enough to be here... or perhaps the intake officers get paid a little too much for such inept work, to put an _omega_ in a wing full  of alphas and expect for something not to go wrong. The words are on her tongue as she turns to them, ready to tell them off - until she sees who it is. Remembers signing the forms herself, foregoing Regime protocol at the behest of his privacy.

She knows Damian Wayne - not a soul here doesn't, but the boy she remembered had been scentless. A rarity, a fully developed alpha by his own admission but lacking any sign of pheromones, she'd wanted to study him but the boy had merely wrinkled her nose and told her to mind her own damn business. Now, undeniably, an omega. 

“You’re going to want to call Bruce Wayne,” Doctor Kinsolving says before long, needing no more than a few moments alone with the boy to determine the cause. “Tell him it’s urgent.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Were you aware your son was an omega, Mr. Wayne?” 

Bruce Wayne is not equipped for this conversation. This is not what he had expected to be doing this evening, not when he had city planning meetings to attend and a U.N. to re-establish. Had it just been Damian throwing another fit, hurting himself in an attempt to break out, he would not have gone. His son is a force of nature, all rage and no consideration for the environment or human life, and he can handle prison left better than perhaps anyone else in the League could.

Yet it was this that had him dropping what he was doing to attend.

He’d suspected, of course. Talia had given him over before he was old enough to know for sure what he was - Damian could have been an alpha or a beta. He insisted that he was  _alpha_ , proud and angry with every fiber of his being. He had always been particularly cagey about changing around the rest of them. He showered privately in his own room after missions and changed in the room furthest from all the rest of them, something they had attributed to his paranoid nature... But his scent, as mild as it was, had always been a bit sweet than that of his brothers. 

He had thought to bring it up when Damian was older. When he was thirteen his scent still hadn't changed, puberty was upon him and he was growing stronger and taller but perhaps not more  _alpha_. When the threat of a possible heat was actually upon them and wasn’t some distant thought he could push off to some other tomorrow, then maybe he would have...

No.  That wasn’t right.

In truth, he’d wanted to leave that conversation to Dick. To Alfred. To let them cope with his wayward son and all the confusion that would come when his body inevitably betrayed him to instinct his mother hadn’t prepared him for. Instead of talking to his son, he read. He researched. The effects of omega children being raised as alphas were poorly researched but insofar as he could see, there was nothing inherently damaging so long as it was addressed appropriately when they developed. That was a topic too sensitive for him, he knew all too well that the al Ghul's never named omegas as their heirs. That Damian's insistence of his trinary gender had come from another source, and that it was tied to too much to take the news that he wasn't too easily.

And Damian had come into their lives full of anger and desperation to stand above them, not to be subjugated - he could only imagine what thoughts were swimming through his head.

 “Damian has always always identified as male," Bruce sighs. A hand comes up to rub his temple. That in itself was not an indication of what he was, where he started, but that had never truly mattered in his household. "It wouldn't matter if he was alpha, beta or omega... but I suspected he may be omega, off and on. I didn't want to be invasive."

Shonda nods slowly, pressing her lips together in a thin line. There’s judgement there. Not for letting his son live his life in the way that was most comfortable for him. That was never an issue, not here, not in his household. It wouldn't matter what Damian was, so long as he was happy. But that's an idealistic thought in a world that doesn't allow for it. Heats could be dangerous, just as ruts could be. Damian could have gone into heat on a patrol, he should have been on suppressants or blockers. 

Yet that wasn't his doing. That hadn't been his responsibility when it mattered, had it? That was Clark's failing.

Clark.

 

Bruce feels a muscle in his jaw jump, his throat constricting painfully. Determined not to allow those thoughts to settle, he pushes on ahead. “How is he?”

“Sedated,” Shonda replies, her voice gentling a little. “He’s in poor condition, but he’ll live, and if we do our job then so will the baby.”

The baby. His stomach rolls just thinking about it.  The words that had _gotten him here_. The baby. Damian’s child. His grandchild.

“And it’s --”

“Kryptonian. Yes. We’ve already verified.”

Each word feels like a physical blow. Bruce clenches his jaw tighter, shuting his eyes and allowing himself a moment. Damian had fought him at every single step, refusing to come home, refusing to admit defeat or guilt -- for this? For a place in Clark’s bed?

There’s a moment of unfathomable anger. His son’s temper didn’t come from nowhere, this he knows -- but the anger abates, leaving him only cold and numb instead. Four months pregnant meant this had happened, at the very latest, days after he turned eighteen.  How long had this been going on?

His fist clenches so tightly he feels old scars tug taunt across busted knuckles.

“Ordinarily,” she says in a soft, measured tone, breaking through his concentration. “This is the decision of the omega or beta. However, circumstances being what they are --”

“Are you asking me if I want to terminate my son’s pregnancy without his consent?” Anger rises, Bruce snaps his gaze to her.

“I am,” she says unflinchingly, straight and to the point. “We just put one tyrant behind bars. What will you do if your son births another?”

“That won’t happen,” Bruce says coolly. “I’ll take responsibility for it. If he chooses to keep it... I won't force him one way or another."

Shonda smiles faintly, perhaps relieved to hear it -- and then she’s businesslike again, gathering up the papers on her desk. 

“Go talk to your son, Bruce. I know he’s done wrong -- he wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t -- but he’s terrified. Being pregnant in prison is not an easy task.”

Bruce nods, like he’s considering it. He is. If there were ever a time to go to the boy's side and offer him forgiveness, it would be now. At his most vulnerable, when his world has collapsed around him and left him with nothing. This would be the moment to step up and say  _I forgive you_ with no qualms, to offer the olive branch and bring him home.

But he doesn’t.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

If ever there were a time to prove all that Damian thought about him wrong -- it would be now. Were he a better man, a stronger man, he would walk into the medbay without any hesitation.

As it is, he stands outside the window - safe behind a one way mirror - and watches the medical staff attend to his youngest. Damian is thin -- thinner than he thought possible. The boy had never boasted much size, even at his peak, but he seemed to have withered since the fall of the Regime. That messy, dark hair had been sliced off unevenly, near as he could get it to the scalp without hurting himself. There was an uneven patch kept longer on the top, a small showing of vanity.

 No doubt he’d done it to prevent others from using it as a handhold in a fight.

( Damian has one casualty in here already. A hulking, wolfish metahuman. Security footage had captured the incident -- those claws winding tight in the boy’s hair and yanking him back, Damian reacting with instinct. Bruce still couldn’t tell if he saw bloodlust or  _fear_  in the aftermath. )

They keep his hands and legs bound to the table underneath him - something that they had initially considered  _overkill_ , considering his sedation.  Their hubris had nearly cost them, as the few moments he’d been free of the drug had been hell for everyone in the room - he’d reacted to finding himself prone and in a foreign room with nothing short of feral strength, every bit his father’s son. Jaime had to intervene, grabbing him under the arms and holding him until someone managed to stick him with a needle.

“If we’d known he was pregnant we would never have kept him up there,” Martin Stein murmurs to the right of him, guilt in his eyes. The old man worries his hands, undoubtedly wracked with the terrible possibilities that might have befallen him. “I’d thought he’d simply overdosed on those pills and that was why...”

“Don’t,” Bruce says quietly, his eyes never leaving his son.  “You did what you had to. I know Damian. Anything less and he would have broken free.”

Stein says nothing. Only shifts, carefully letting whatever was on his mind fall to the wayside. Afraid of being open, of being honest.

Bruce sighs.

“I’m not Kal-El,” he turns to look at the old man, allowing the tension to seep out of his shoulders and wearing the mask of a friendly smile. “Please. Tell me what’s on your mind, Professor.”

“No, no. You would know better than I, Mr. Wayne. I just thought...” He trails off, carefully sifting about for the right words. “I just think perhaps you’re over-estimating the boy.”

“I can see why you would, but I'm not.”

“Then perhaps I’m underestimating him,” he concedes, yet the wrinkles on his brow furrow deeper and Bruce knows that this isn’t a professional conversation. It’s a parental one.  “I just think -- when my Lily got her mate pregnant, she was petrified. And much older, of course. But the fear--”

“Damian made his bed,” Bruce cuts him off, an edge to his voice he doesn’t  _mean_  to be there but can’t stop it. This is not a conversation he wants to have, this is not a conversation he is  _having_. He knows his son, what he's capable of, how his mind works.  “Believe me, Professor. My son is no fool. He calculates the risk of everything, if he -- if this happened, it was an intended outcome.”

Yet as he says the words, despite the conviction in his tone -- he finds his heart doubting.

For all the distance between them, Bruce had never stopped watching, never stopped  _caring_. The press conferences that the Regime put on were all smoke and mirrors, but the expressions of each member as they watched Kal speak spoke volumes. There was Barry’s growing disgust, Victor’s grim resolution, Hal’s tired resignation, Diana’s blind love, Billy’s  _hero worship_  -- and Damian, whose expression had always seemed far closer to  _Billy’s_  than  _Diana’s_.

He may not know his son as he was now, but he knew him then. Knew him during all the time they’d held him captive, heard him fervently swearing that Kal-El would come rescue them. Watched him mirror Clark the same way the boy had once mirrored him, seeking attention and validation (and receiving it, Clark handed out fatherly affection  _so easily_  that it had once made Bruce jealous) but never lust.

“This was the intended outcome,” he repeats, the finality of his tone silencing the Professor on the matter. 

After some silence, Professor Stein tried to change the topic. “Do you know if he’s going to keep it?”

“I’ve been told he intends to,” Bruce confirms. An orderly had told him -- during Damian’s brief, lucid moment he had deduced why he was there, though he was off about their intentions. The scuffle had been in an attempt to protect the child, not himself -- though in truth, he couldn’t confirm whether or not the boy was attached or if he just didn’t want the choice made for him. “Damian is too loyal to Clark to terminate what could be his last chance at continuing his people. He’ll keep it.”

“And when it’s born..” 

And what then? 

“He’s serving a life sentence, Professor. He’ll be in solitary until he delivers, and I’ll be taking custody once it’s born and he’ll be returned to his cell.. Clark won’t know, and he can’t.”

Again, his voice is colder than he feels. Damian may have strayed, but the boy was his  _son_... It would be so easy to push the door open and go in there.  To talk to him, to tell him that it will all he alright -- but before he is his son, he is a criminal and a murderer. That has stopped him every time he’s lifted his hand to enter the room, every time he’s attempted to speak to him over the years.

He remembers the boy who had looked longingly at puppies in store windows when he thought Bruce couldn’t see, remembers the  _fear_  he’d felt at giving a child raised by monsters such a small and helpless creature.

It won’t change now. 

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Wayne. I know this can’t be easy.” A tentative hand rests on his shoulder, and Bruce feels grief more profoundly than he has in years.

“The right thing never is.”

* * *

 

Damian Wayne had been born into a family of Alphas. Ra’s, Talia, his father - all of them were proud, independent and strong. While the al Ghul’s were more traditional -- maintaining packs and strict hierarchy, using force and violence to determine their leaders -- the Waynes had long since abandoned that thought.

Perhaps that was why he’d been born omega.

Perhaps that was why he was so weak.

Perhaps that was why he was  _pregnant_.

Damian isn’t sure precisely when he awoke, only that he can expect nothing good from here on out. The low-grade sedative isn’t enough to keep him under, not with all the poison and resistance training he’d taken over the years, but the restraints are enough to bind him in place and stop him from breaking free. With his body in this condition, even if he could, he imagines he’d be overtaken by security before he reached the door.

There was no happy ending here. No chance to claw his way to freedom and live out his days somewhere far from his father and all his moral grandstanding. Damian would rot in prison, and if no criminal managed to claim his life or the one inside him, he’d lose custody before he even had the chance to know it.

It.

If he thought about it anymore, he was going to be sick. Never had he been able to think about that night with any degree of comfort -- Clark had done what he had to, he’d saved him, like he always did. But nothing about that had felt  _right_ , and no matter how he tried he couldn’t brush away what felt like a betrayal of trust. All he’d wanted to do was forget it ever happened...

And now this.

This was his responsibility. Clark had always taken care of him, and so this was his only means of repaying any of that. Not letting his kind  _die_  with him, allowing the Kryptonian bloodline to live on was the very least he could do.

Yet this feels wrong. His body feels  _wrong_. Having something inside him feels  _wrong_. Having those parts of him touched were -- none of that had felt right or good, and all he could do in turn  was breathe through the nausea and discomfort.

He would have to escape.

He would have to get a message to Victor and they would have to escape. He was not going to  _stay here_

_( his mind flashes to dick as deadman, wondering if he could see and if he knew how wrong this was, then if he would **save him**  from this fate )_

and allow Bruce to ruin it the way his father had ruined him.

Already he can hear the staff whispering, thinking him under, about how  _good_  it is that his father is there to take custody of that child. Then perhaps it will have a shot at a  _normal_  life, one free from the legacy of its  _parent_ s.

His temper flares, but he wills himself silent and his heart to maintain its steady pace. He would escape, he would  _get free_  and this would be little more than a bad memory.

* * *

 

Bruce does not return to the manor as he intended to. He spends another fortnight in Metropolis.

When they had called and told him Damian was in trouble, he had dropped everything to be by the boy’s side. Now he had a new problem, one far more nuanced and complicated than could be assuaged with a glance and an assurance that his son was still too stubborn to die. He would have to think carefully through what needed to be done and how to do it, advise the staff on how to put the boy at ease without giving him anything he could use as a weapon. 

There were prenatal doctors to book and a room to prepare, and...

And Selina. He would need to talk to Selina.

He would have to ask her what she had observed in the Regime, if she had known about this tryst and if so, why she had not told him.

( _he could guess_ )

And more importantly, if she was comfortable raising his grandchild along side him as if it were their own. Their relationship had been built on the secrecy and the danger -- would she want to be a mother? To live a domestic lie? He remembered Helena, how she had wept when she had been forced to give the child up for her own safety, how she had struggled to bounce back afterwards. Would this let her finally have the motherhood she had so loved?

And, moreover...

Would he feel comfortable taking a child from Damian? 

Part of him was resolute. Damian had never been good with small and vulnerable things. He remembers those first few months, finding bats crushed in the cave by little fingers. He remembers Tim nearly bleeding out on the floor, and Dick narrowly dodging a similar fate.

( _there were other times, compassionate times, watching his son drop everything to help someone. watching damian sit with a man and talk him down from the worst moment in his life. watching robin drop the sullen, moody child that he is to be the inspiration others needed to hope -- but those memories feel so distant now, in comparison to the ones of a boy with tears in his eyes and a body at his feet_ )

Yet part of him knows that there is no alternative, but if there  _were_ one then he would latch onto it. A lifetime sentence is a lifetime sentence -- one he may have had a hand in, but the boy was too loyal. Too indoctrinated. Clark had won him over completely. Mind, heart, soul and body --

No.

He needs a drink.

All of this will be better tomorrow. He calls Selina, tells her he loves her - warns her to arm Brother Eye and tell him if anything suspicious happens, and assures her he’ll return home by the end of the week.

It’s only when he’s finally ready to sleep that all hell breaks loose. The phone on the bedside screeches an alarm and he’s bolt upright, sleep forgotten as he grabs for it and pulls it to his ear. There’s shouting on the other end, gunfire, the sound of a  _dying breath and_ -

He doesn’t need to know more. Bruce is pulling the cowl on before his feet even touch the floor. 


	3. Chapter 3

It’s a warzone. Lex Luthor’s Metahuman Prison is a hail of gunfire and screaming, angry metahumans.

Bruce meets a man with a familiar voice, rasping and  _cold_  and full of such vitriol he can only wonder what he’d done to deserve this -- the man is a better fighter, a  _stronger_  fighter, and he beats him within an inch of his life. He’s saved by two familiar faces thought long gone, and for the first time, despite the defeat, things feel  _okay._ There's a proposal in the hospital, Ollie accepts Dinah's offer and Bruce gets to see Connor for the first time since the boy was born.

_If this was as bad as it got, they could handle it._

_But it's not._

* * *

 

They run tests and Damian's ordered on bedrest -- not that he can argue against it, with their choice to  _tie_  him to it. He has an ultrasound. They do not discuss the details with him - an order from his father, he suspects. Perhaps some misguided belief that the less he knows, the less attached he will be. Always making decisions  _for_  him, not caring at all what he may want.

Bruce does not visit. Despite himself, he finds himself wishing he  _would_  -- a hope that dies at the end of his second week of hospitalization.  He’s four and a half months into an unplanned pregnancy and somehow that is not the most dire part of his situation.

It’s the sound of gunshots that pulls Damian from the first real sleep he’s had in weeks. Fatigue had won out over paranoia, and he’d allowed himself to drift -- the wrong time, it seemed. People screaming. The room is heavy with the scent of  _blood_  and death, so thick he nearly chokes on it. 

The world is dark when he wakes and he needs no  _nightvision_  to recognize his mother’s footsteps.  He can’t see them from where he is, but he knows her by the sound of her breath and the sureness of her steps. He had grown up learning to pick those steps out of a room full of noises, to recognize the pattern of her breathing by a raging river. She had taught him everything he had ever needed to know about being an assassin.

“Hello, mother," he rasps, "Get me out of here.”

Yet as they approach, he picks another set of footsteps with her. There’s someone else with her. Matching her step but lighter on their feet, younger,  _more eager_.

 _“Please,” the unfamiliar voice cuts through the darkness,_ female and bitter _. “Let me out of here_ please _.”_

His mother is unchanged from how he remembers her. She steps into view and bends down, stroking a hand down his cheek before busying herself with removing the restraints.

“Did you raise him without manners?” The unfamiliar voice snips coldly, he hears the sound of a gun cocking. 

“His father raised him for a time,” his mother replies evenly, and there is a  _moment_  of tenderness. She presses her lips to his forehead and inhales his scent deeply -- pausing, and he knows that she  _knows. Then_ she’s gently pushing him up from the prone position he’d been in, her arm slidng around his back to help pull him to his feet. “The Bat has many skills to impart, but  _social skills_  are not among them. Up, love, we must go.”

“You’re worried about social skills when you’ve just  _killed_  all these people?” The words come out  _weaker_  than he wants them to, his voice rawer than he means it to be. It’s been a long two weeks, and though he’s regained most of his strength -- he can’t deny that there is still something  _wrong._

_( nobody talks to him directly, not really, but he’s heard the words preeclampsia and he doesn’t need a dictionary to let him know that’s not good )_

Talia pays no heed to his temperament, but the stranger scoffs. In the dark he barely see her, but he almost recognizes those sharp features - though he cannot remember her for the life of him. “Yes, I killed them. To free  _you_... though I’m starting to think we should just leave you here to rot, you ungrateful little--”

“Athanasia, that’s enough. Damian, can you walk or should I carry you?” Talia’s got him half supported as they take a few steps, and in truth, he is unsure. He’s unsteady and dizzy, but he’s been through  _worse and if they’re here then there’s nothing to worry about._

“I can manage,” he says, and then gives his head a shake. “We have to free the others. They--”

“They’re not needed,” the girl, Athanasia, cuts him off. There is no time wasted. Talia half-carries, half-supports him as they make their way out, hurrying along the dark hall towards the nearest exit. She continues, her voice hushed. “They had their chance. They  _controlled_  the world, we are fighting  _for_  the world.”

 

* * *

 

The prison is being overrun. The broken out metahumans are attacking, and the Imposter Batman is with them. It’s an all out warzone and people are  _dying_ , but he doesn’t have time to stop and save every life. They will weigh on his conscious for the rest of his days, but he  _doesn’t have time_.

Bruce will be damned if Clark gets loose again. Not after how hard it was to take him down, not after  _all they’d lost_.  He bursts through the doors just as the Kryptonian takes the landing, not strong enough to fly but strong enough to  _fight_.

And strong enough to  _hear_. Hear  _everything_  in the facility the moment he opens that door.

For a moment, Bruce can tell it’s all just noise --  _hopes_  it’s all just noise, and then Clark’s boyish blue eyes go wide and he knows this has to end now.

Because Clark  was never the intended target.

“Do it,” he doesn’t bother with the fanfare. Atom plunges a Kryptonite dagger into his brain and knocks him into a comatose state, and certain he will stay that way, Bruce turns on his heel and runs.

 

* * *

 

There are more footsteps. Heavier. Around the corner the SWAT team appears, brandishing weaponry  _far_  superior to Athanasia’s pitiful handguns. Scopes and lasers, nightvision, he didn’t know better he’d say this was the end of this prison break... But anyone with any knowledge of the League of Assassins would know to put their weapons down and walk away. Anyone who had heard rumors or  _legends_ should know that it is nearly all truth, and a single assassin trained by their elite can cut through the chafe without effort.

“Put the boy  _down_. Damian, son, step away with your hands up,” the Warden calls. Damian knows him at once - this was the man who had burst into his cell to get him aid. A good man, a  _kind_  man. One of the few who had been dutiful when attending to him, careful that the restraints didn't cut in too tight and that he was getting enough to eat.

“Don’t,” his voice is pleading, “Turpin, I don’t want you hurt. Put your weapons down and step back.”

“That’d be a lot easier to believe if there wasn’t a  _massacre_  in here,” the man sniffs, his hand lifting to his earpiece. A fatal mistake if there ever was one, there's no stopping things now. “Batman, it’s Turpin. All this is a diversion, they’re not here for Clark they’re here for--”

It only takes four quick shots to make four dead bodies. Athanasia ignores his shout -- as does his mother, who merely tightens her grip and begins  _dragging him_  along in earnest to the exit. Ignoring his protests, his attempts to get back to the corpses before he  _remembers_ that he is not dealing with accidents anymore. These are deliberate fatalities.

By the time they’re outside he’s stopped.There’s no  _point_  and if he goes back in he’ll be resigning himself to the very fate he’d been so desperate to avoid. Talia has turned away to fiddle with something -- a teleporter, most likely -- and keeps her back to him.

And so he rounds on the girl.

“There were seven different ways to incapacitate them!” He’s shouting now, not caring at all. “That was completely unnecessary! Mother, what kind of poorly trained, trigger happy fools are you allowing into your service!”

She’s on him at that. Damian feels his back slam into the ground before he even registers movement, her hand shoving his face  _hard._ There’s the press of cool metal, and  _there_. He knows where he’s seen that face.

It’s his. His, but softer. All the hard angles replaced with something softer. The snarl is  _vicious_  but it has nothing on the bloodlust reflecting back in those cold blue eyes.

“Get off of him,” Talia snarls, and the girl is off in an instant. Talia bends down to take his hand, smoothing his unevenly cut hair back from his face -- before she’s slapping him. A sharp reprimand he remembers, one gentler than he’s accustomed to. “Damian, that’s no way to talk to your  _sister_.”

And then they’re gone.

 

* * *

 

Bruce arrives on the scene too late. Harley is gone, Damian is gone, and there are only bodies in their wake. Doctor Kinsolving survived the massacre thanks to her abilities, saved as many as she could, and meets him in the foyer.

She tells him the causalities and the damages, and he does his best to listen attentively -- but she reads the question on his mind and just sighs, giving her head a slow shake to confirm all his worst fears.

“He shouldn’t be moving,” she says, and Bruce feels his heart plummet. “He’s not well, Batman.”

“I’ll bring him back,” he swears, but there’s a  _thought_  gnawing at the back of his mind. A cold voice that whispers that he’s zero for four now, and his youngest has always been his most vulnerable in every way but physical.

They gather the team. But it is all just beginning.

 

* * *

 

They arrive at one of his grandfather's strongholds and he's escorted to his room. When Talia is drawn away to debrief the other members on the mission, she entrusts him to his sister. Something that nets them both a dirty look, but grudgingly, she helps drag him to quarters. Up close, Athanasia is like looking into a funhouse mirror of all the possibilities. Alpha female to his omega male, al Ghul to Wayne, cold and calculated where he’s gone soft and caring. This is a future he could have expected, should he have stayed -- no Grayson to temper him, no Drake to teach him tolerance, no Alfred to show him compassion. 

It’s a terrible thought.

He imagines that she must be the new heir, created when he had abandoned the family. Talia had once mentioned the capacity to make  _more_ , that had been her last comment when he’d finally decided to flee his homeland and go live in America with his father. It looked like she was correct, that she did in face have the ability to replace him and  _had_.

Yet he is in the quarters of the heir again. His name is still emblazoned on the wall, in rich banners of red. While there are fresh sheets on the bed and it is free of dust and dirt, the room is unused and unlived in. Probably had been since he left, but by the time they arrive he’s too  _tired_  to investigate. She shows him to his quarters and where there would usually be paranoia and a certainty of death, there is only a grim acceptance that if he’s to die then he’d rather do it sleeping.

And sleep he does.

A knock at the door brings him around come dawn. He sits up, expecting mother -- but instead his grandfather stands in the door, the faintest of smiles on his face.

Something he hadn’t expected. Not after he had slaughtered every agent his grandfather had sent, spurning every attempt they had to bring him back into the fold.  

Damian stands at once and moves to bow, but a hand at his chin stops him Instead the old man clasps his hands tightly in his, squeezing reassuringly. “ _Habibi,_ it is good to see you home.”

It doesn’t feel like coming home. How he wishes it did. That he could genuinely return the old man’s smile, for he  _does_  remember how close they had been. Ra’s had been so kind to him, so caring, he had only known cruelty when he had disobeyed or failed.

When he had left he had gone seeking a better life, a different life. One free of blood and war -- only to learn that it was all ineffectual. That it was pointless to stay the blade when your enemy would not, and when they would strike back twice as hard. He had gone seeking family who would love and want him unconditionally, and yet found only more of the same.

He squeezes back. 

He should never have left.

“I’m sorry for staying away so long,  _jaddi_ ,” he says softly, and Ra’s green eyes are alight with equal parts joy and  _smug satisfaction._   Damian knows he has strayed so far from the path he was born to walk, but he is _unsure_ if he feels guilty for this. “I should have come home at the first summon.”

“Yes,” Ra’s agrees, letting go of his hands and gesturing for him to sit again, something he feels  _profoundly_  grateful for. “But you have valuable skills and experience now. You won’t be lackey to your father or the alien again, child. You will take your rightful place.”

“But,  _jaddi_ , I--”

“Did as your mother before you and secured a powerful mate.” Damian’s stomach flips at the word  _mate_ , he bites back his discomfort. “Make no mistake, I am not pleased with your presentation or the decisions you have made. However, I am aware that no ordinary omega could stand shoulder to shoulder with the Regime and come out alive. You must still prove yourself to me, and to our people, but you are  _home_ , Damian. That is all that matters. Even your child is welcome here."

Damian’s eyes cut to the door, to the girl he is certain is standing on the other side of it. He knows this conversation too well, and more than that, he knows his grandfather’s opinions on  _aberrations_  in the natural order of things. Metahumans, aliens-- none of that fits in with his plan. It never has. The League has always been about being the pinnacle of human achievement, to rid the world of the wasteful and unnatural. Bearing a child from Krypton does not fit in to that plan, no matter what strength it may grand them.

This child will not be an heir to the league. It may train with them, it may serve with them, but it will be no heir... he understands what they are offering, there is no need to discuss the deal that is on the table as all parties involve understand it perfectly. Any child from an unapproved mate may live, but will not be granted the al Ghul name. He has earned the right to  _that_ much.

What bothers him is they think he  _wanted_  this. But to admit it would be to admit to a grievous and potentially unforgivable error, and  _he will not._

“And Athanasia?”

Ra’s chuckles.  “She has always known her place and position. Do not worry.”

That does not ease his worries. If anything, he worries  _more_. Intentional, of course, a  _reminder_. Her place is under him, and if she slashes up, then she will crawl to the top through a river of his blood.

“We’ll have our finest healers look you over,” the old man continues. “I understand you’ve been having difficulties. Talia mentioned that this pregnancy is a difficult one... I suppose that’s to be expected. When you are well, we will speak in more detail.”

“Yes, grandfather.”

Ra’s smiles again and excuses himself from Damian’s quarters.

Talia is by a little later with water and food. He isn’t to leave his quarters, on bedrest until the medics can tend to him -- high blood pressure, she informs him. An unfortunate side-effect of the superpill abuse that had plagued his teens, his body was poorly equipped to carry  _anything. Let alone_  a half-alien fetus it was not designed to carry. There is a fever plaguing him again by nightfall and he’d like nothing more than to throw himself in the ocean to cool himself. The child presents too many complications to allow for a dunk in the Lazarus pits, and so instead he’s given medicine and pampered like the Prince he was to be.

He doesn't want to think about it. The child is still an unknown, easy to ignore if he puts his mind elsewhere. The second he notes the changes to his body is the second he accepts that this has happened, that this is not a temporary measure but a _consequence_ he is not equipped to deal with. 

“This too shall pass,” she strokes his hair back from his face, smiling gently. “Can I ease your mind, little love? What can I get you?”

“Alfred,” he mumbles without thinking, only realizing it when her hand stops petting his hair what he has said, and what it must mean to her. Damian starts to sit up, speaking quickly. “Not that you are not soothing, mother, but I...”

“You miss him,” she concludes, palm gently pressing onto his chest to ease him back down against the sheets. He turns to look at her, and her expression is unreadable. Calculating in that familiar way -- her hand resumes stroking his cheek, brushing the sweat away.  “It’s alright, Damian. You lost much under your father’s thumb...”

A glance over her shoulder, to the slightly opened door.

“Perhaps we can reclaim one small thing.”

 

* * *

 

This is the new Justice League.

Green Arrow, Black Canary, Catgirl, Batgirl and Batman. They’re scarcely a group, and certainly not an army.  There are a few more recruits coming but he can’t be sure if they’ll want to join for the long term, with how terrible and awry the Regime had gone. Organized heroes were frowned upon these days, no longer did the sight of a cape make anyone feel safe. 

A war has broken out. It’s barely been a week since Damian was taken and already everything is far worse than he could ever have imagined it to be. Ted Kord is dead. Jaime is beside himself with grief and ready for vengeance, and that makes him too dangerous to bring into the fold.

“Ra’s has him,” Bruce works his fingers through his dark hair, frazzled and wild from his incessant worrying. The Batcave is a mess of papers and half-empty coffee mugs, it’s immaculate state long gone with the absence of it’s primary caretaker. He’d thought to clean it half a dozen times but never found the energy. “And Ra’s is declaring war against mankind itself.”

“What would Ra’s want with Damian? I thought the al Ghul’s were all,” Ollie pauses, swishing his hand absently through the air to find the words, “anti-omega?”

“Not necessarily,” Barbara cuts in. “By all accounts, al Ghul omegas are treated well, but they’re rarely given any positions of power. Even if they fall on Ra’s favored side.”

“Damian is someone’s  _favorite?”_ Ollie wrinkles his nose, giving a weak laugh.

Bruce doesn’t answer. His back is to them, fingers massaging his temples. He hasn’t slept more than an hour at a time since all of this began and isn’t sure if he will again until Damian is  _safe._ Ra’s is unpredictable. He could have decided that the child is an abomination against nature, or that Damian himself has sullied the name. He could want him to be  _heir_  or he could want him stuffed and mounted.

He has no idea.

He needs to sleep.

“We don’t know why they want him,” Babara rests a gently on his shoulder. “But we’ll get him back.”

“I’m not worried about them hurting him... I’m more worried about what’s going to happen if they  _like_  him,” Selina mutters, she’s not looking at any of them, absently fiddling with a loose thread on her jacket. “He’ll fight tooth and nail if he pops the kid out and gets  _attached... not that he wouldn’t anyway,_  but a parent’s love is something else. Something dangerous. And when your kid can blow up buildings by winking at them...”

Bruce turns to look at her. She doesn’t return it. Dinah looks up and he sees it in her eyes, too - how far she would go to protect her son.

“You were in the Regime with him. How did that even  _happen_?” Barbara turns to face her, lips pressed in a thin line. 

“Yes, Selina...” Bruce straightens up in his chair, unsure of how to even approach the topic. He didn't want to know - did his former best friend mate his son behind his back? And if he had, then- why? “I’d like to know that as well.”

Selina starts to say something, stops, and shakes her head. Something like guilt creeps across her face, something like  _shame_  following it., before she quickly schools it all back into a careful mask.  “I don't know. Look, right now we need to focus on getting the little vampire bat back"

"Agreed,” Dinah gives her head a solid shake, as if that's enough to cast off the danger in the air. “Listen, we’re going to go ahead with the wedding tomorrow. Let’s have one last  _good_  day before we go to all out war. Bruce, get some sleep. You too, Babs. We need to rest up before we do  _anything_. Okay?”

There’s some grumbling, some noncommittal sounds. But eventually they’re in agreement.

Rest first, and then action.

( He implants Connor with a tracking chip when the meeting concludes, for his own peace of mind more than theirs. No one will not lose another child on his watch. )

 

* * *

 

There’s a Batman in his room.

Damian pretends to be asleep, but the shadow he casts on the wall is  _damning_. His hand grips the knife under the pillow, a sharp breath is drawn in through his nose, and he waits.

Waits until those footfalls come closer, and closer, waits until he  _should_  have turned. Until he feels a hand on his shoulder.

Then he’s whipping around, aiming to drive that knife into the intruder’s jugular. 

“Easy, babybat, easy! Did your mom not just tell you to sit still!?” The fake Bat’s arms are around him, holding him tight -- it’s one part affection, two parts not wanting to get stabbed. A hold he’s familiar with, a voice even more so. Without the modulator he knows it, and he pushes back hard enough to stagger the man, wary and ready to fight at the slightest sign of illusion.

“It’s me! Holy shit, I knew you were  _mad_  but I didn’t think you were  _that_ mad!” The false Bat gives his head a shake, reading up to lift the cowl off his head - and there.  _There._  The dark blue eyes are more tired than he remembers, the five o’clock shadow heavier, and that streak of white wasn’t there but-- 

“Jason!”

And then he’s rushing back. Arms going tight around the Alpha, dragging him close. It’s all Jason can do to sit them down, hauling the smaller man onto his lap. Perhaps to save his ass when Talia  _inevitably_  demanded to know why he was upright and running about.

“How?!”

There are tears. Shameful tears,  _relieved_  tears, building in his eyes. The years have not been  _kind_  to him. Death is a hated friend, it’s  _rare_  that she gives something back -- even in these hallowed halls. His father’s scorn of the pits had damned so many people from a second chance.

But not this one.

_Not this one._

“Your grandfather is six hundred years old, kiddo.  _How_  do you think?” Jason’s pulls him back a little, takes a good look at him and seems to note the tears with a frown. “Jesus. What the hell did B do to you, Babybat?”

There’s a weak laugh, Damian lifts his hands to rub at his eyes and brush the tears away. “Perhaps it’s easiest to say that I’m going to make one unfortunate therapist very, very rich someday.”

“No doubt.”

Jason’s eyes drop to his stomach, expresson unreadable. He’s not showing as much as he could be, the muscle tone and the build of his body keep him slim, but anyone remotely familiar with the condition he usually keeps himself in could notice the difference. 

“Lay back down before your mother skins me. I’m not going anywhere... How you holding up?” 

“I’ve been worse.”

“That good, huh?”

“Mother says this is why she refused to carry any child inside her. Too many possible complications," Damian rests a hand on his stomach, at the barest hint of a curve to the taunt muscle. "Unfortunately, I have no such luxury."

“That sounds about right,” Jason chuckles. “You were probably a in the ass from day one."

“Not nearly so much as you. I would scoff her gift-giving abilities, but you at least have your uses. Especially in this scenario."

“You think I’m a gift? I’m flattered," Jason snorts, winking playfully. "And here I thought you were- what was it you used to say? Waiting for me to lower my guard so you could liberate my hood from my shoulders?"

"And so you understand my surprise that it was you she chose."

“Oh," he stops short of what he was about to say, laughing a little as the realization dawns.  Jason ruffles his hair affectionately as he stands. Damian nearly reaches out to grab his hand again, to confirm that he’s real. But he refrains. “We’ll talk when I get back.”"No, babybat. I’m just stopping in before we go get that, actually. Jus’ wanted to let you know I was here, since your mom lifted the no visitors ruling. And it kinda seems like you’re overdue for some good news.” 

And wasn't that the truth. Already his heart feels lighter, a little less burdened by the sight of a familiar face. One that he perhaps hadn't appreciated nearly as much  as he should have when they had all been in the manor together, but a mistake he would surely not make again.

"Rest up. The sooner we get you out of bed, the sooner you can see everything here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm skimming through some of the things that are gone over extensively in the comics where there are little to no changes. Things will start diverging more in a chapter or two and then updates will probably slow down as it means I actually have to write everything out and not judge bridge scenes together.


	4. Chapter 4

There’s a war coming. He feels it in his bones and tastes it on the air. The air is thick with danger and he thinks that perhaps he should cut his losses and seek solace elsewhere.

Jason wakes him when he returns, offering a cocky smile and a tilt of his head, a gesture to follow him despite the strict bed rest orders he had been so determined to uphold.

“Your surprise is here, babybat,” is the only answer he gets to the question of where he was and what exactly is going on. Damian rolls his eyes but cannot help himself but rolling out of bed to follow him.

Down the hall, passed a room full of voices that sound too young to be in here, Jason leads him to the gardens. 

A man sits, slumped in a wheelchair. Gone is the dapper suit and tie, replaced instead of red robes he’s come to associate with the bright green of the pits.

“Jason?” Damian stands, rooted to the spot. Soft hands come to rest on his shoulders, Talia gives a gentle squeeze of reassurance as she supports him. He wonders idly if he had swayed, if there had been some damning show of weakness to bring her here.

“A piece of your life, reclaimed,” she whispers, and with this -- he knows the contact is sealed.

He will not leave here alone. He may never leave here at all.

In his youth, Damian had thought his grandfather’s holdings were the very pinnacle of human achievement. His mother had pieced him together when his father’s carelessness had gotten him nearly killed, the recovery had been painful but nothing at all short of miraculous. In these halls, Damian had felt invincible.

South America’s holding had always been his favorite.

Days were spent trailing at Ra’s heels, eager to absorb every word and succeed his grandfather in pushing humanity to it’s peak. Asking questions and demanding answers with a boldness befitting of the Prince of the League... he had been a poor student but it had not been from an unwillingness to learn. Merely from lacking the patience to absorb it, and the temperament to endure what was necessary to allow it.

In truth, he still lacks those qualities. But time away has given him time to reflect, to better mind his manners when speaking and when spoken to. Talia brings him to the medical bay and they examine him in detail, offer medication to counterbalance the nausea and bring his blood pressure down. They get him functional, as they always have, but not perfect. Instead they warn him away from active duty and to mind his condition. Something he nearly rejects outright - refusing to allow this to stop him from exacting his revenge, but he’s not fool enough to go against his mother’s will.

Talia lays a hand on the swell of his stomach and smiles with a tenderness he’d forgotten she could possess, tinged with a bitterness he recalls all too well. Perhaps it is this that she seeks to renew their bond over, the lost love and the child that will forever remind them of what could have been.  The touch feels invasive, her love for it feels misplaced. 

That this was not her story, that he had not had a single night of everything only to find it gone in the morning light. Yet he can’t, that is a secret he mustn’t say else he prove everything they’d ever told him about omegas to be true. He only presses their foreheads together and covers her hands with his.

“You are home now, Damian. Your father will not hurt you again,” she vows, and the love in her voice nearly matches the promise of vengeance. 

He squeezes her hands.

“I know, mother.”

She allows him to wear armor and hold weapons, but she will not permit him to join the mission. Guard duty is in the books for his future, and had he not just come from a miserable prison, he’d have made the comparison.

Yet he knows as it is, this is not paradise. The tactics discussed across the table do not thrill him, but given an admittedly tenuous position in the League he does not argue. 

Nor do those who would speak against it. The armor hides any trace of his affliction, his countenance does not allow for them to question an omega sitting at Ra’s right hand and speaking as though he is an equal to him. In these halls, he does not just feel like royalty, he is royalty. So long as they think he will kill them for their disrespect, they won’t dare voice it.

He only hopes no one tries to call that bluff.

 For all his bloodlust and rage, he has kept a code of honor -- not the one his father taught him, nor the one of his mother, but something between. Walking that line between brutality and mercy, damned to tip too far one way or the other no matter where he was. A sword against him is a sword raised, but a word against him isn’t worth the blood.

If there is good in the world, it does not dwell in these halls  He does not feel good here.  He does not feel as though he can do good here, but this is home.

This is all he has.

And it is a relief to have Jason here again, though Damian is loathed to admit it. Those younger years spent in the older boy’s company had been some of the better ones that he remembered, even if Jason was half-mad and he were nearly all the way gone into Ra’s ideology. 

If they’re here then he knows that this is bait, that his father will surely come, and Alfred is here as insurance that he doesn’t just flee.

And Alfred... Well, he’s relived. Overjoyed, even, considering the cruel circumstances he'd last seen him in. Considering all he'd done to avenge him. They give him his own quarters but Damian will be damned if he has him anywhere he can't watch, can't protect. The servants bring a cot into his quarters and he secludes himself in there over the next few days, occasionally interrupted by Jason or Talia should they seek his company.

“You're looking a lot better” he says fondly, noting the color finally staring to return to his cheeks. Damian drags a stool over to sit in front of him, a bowl full of warm porridge in hand. “Wish I could give you some of your own cooking, but we’re on a strict baby food diet until we get you talking again.”

Carefully, he spoons food into his mouth. Careful to ensure that he swallows fully and doesn’t choke. To his relief, those autonomic responses are rapidly returning. Alfred can blink on his own and doesn’t need to be coaxed to swallow -- all good signs, as far as Ra’s has told him -- and if he continues talking to him then perhaps that will stimulate his mind.

He hopes.

At least there's no shortage of things to talk about.

“Jason is here. Mother -- I think she must have intervened, after -- well... He’s here, and he’s well. Once he’s cleared up his schedule he’ll be in here to help you when I am not around... the servants are trustworthy, but you never felt right leaving us with babysitters either...” He shrugs, considering the words. Alfred shifts a little and the spoon splashes onto his cheek. “... Granted, I suppose that might have been for their comfort rather than ours.”

Damian sets the porridge aside and grabs a wet-wipe.

“Once you’re well, we’ll go somewhere far from here. You, me, and once he’s finished here, Jason -- Grandfather has made arrangements, we will not be involved in the fighting this time. Not in your condition, or... mine. Loathed as I am to admit it. I could use a vacation, how about you?”

There's a pause, as if for an answer. 

How he  _wished_ for an answer.

"That's okay. You threatened Disneyland no less than a hundred times, we'll go there first."

A knock at the door pulls his attention away, stopping the one-sided conversation completely. Damian glances up as it swings open- Athanasia pauses in the doorway, looking at him dabbing away the mess. There’s a moment of confusion, disbelief flitting across her face before she seems to realize that this  _is_ real. That he  _is_ here of his own free will, caring for what she probably considers to be a useless corpse.

Damian shuts his eyes and leans back, takes a moment to collect himself before he says the worst.

“The Lazarus Pits don’t always bring people back the way they were... and Alfred was gone a long time.” Her tone is... not what he expected. Athanasia is far from the compassionate type, but he recognizes it in her voice. The gentle pity, the concern for how this might affect him. 

Family was family.

“I didn’t think you had a nuturing side to you,” she says finally, a hand resting on her hip. “You struck me as an ego-centric little monster... who taught you humility? The Bat?”

“No. I didn’t learn it from him,” Damian pushes himself to his feet, setting the bowl and spoon aside. His sister’s eyes shift to the man in the chair, dots connecting, and then back again. At least she’s sharp. “Did you need something?”

“It’s a nice side.” Their eyes meet. There’s something unreadable there - perhaps envy, perhaps judgement. “Maybe your child isn’t doomed.”

“Did you need something, sister?” He repeats, annoying building.

“Grandfather wants you in the gardens. Without the armor, in your civilian clothes.” A pause, her gaze again shifts to Alfred. “With him.”

“ _Why_?” 

Athanasia shakes her head.

“He’s making a statement.”

“A statement?” Dark brows furrow together, something  _ominous_ in those words giving him pause. 

“He wants your father to see how he has restored what he failed to protect,” she clarifies, tossing her head back. Haughty pride glitters in her eyes, she is  _every bit_ an al Ghul, indoctrinated into the message completely. No doubt she had never before questioned Ra's, and  _that_ was why she was not the heir. “And how he will do the same to the rest of the world.”

“This is a _terrible_ idea," he spits, shaking his head. "What are you trying to accomplish with this?"

“This is an order, Damian. Or are you incapable of following any that don’t come from the mouth of an alien?”

Fists clench at his sides, the urge to drive one into her face is nearly overpowering. He knows that he could do it, that she would  _hurt_ \-- but he would hurt more, if she hit back. Survival is an instinct, and he is hardwired to follow it.

Instead he nods stiffly, turning his attention from her and back to Alfred. A deep breath is drawn through the nose, he pushes back the rage and lets it out slowly. He no longer as just himself to worry about, he has Alfred, and Jason, and --

and something else.

“I’ll be down in an hour. Give me time to wash and dress.” Damian gives a dismissive wave of his hand. "Go."

Yet she remains. The command seems to have struck a nerve - he is not  _asking_ and she is not  _obeying_. Instead her eyes rake over him, over the underarmor he's still wearing, to the subtle swell of his hips and the slightly more pronounced one of his belly. The scorn is palpable, shifting into a sneer. "Is this an omega’s vanity?”

“No,” it comes in a snarl, unable to stop himself. Damian turns on her - no violence, merely _presence_. Something he had learned, tagging along with the League. The only human, the only  _omega_ , mirroring whoever was strongest in the room. “If we’re going to make a statement to my father then we should look our best.  _Leave_ , Athanasia. That is an order.”

“You’re not -- “

“As the heir, I am.  _Get_.”

Unlike him - scentless, free from the telltale traces that changes in mood and body give - Athanasia radiates anger. He smells it off of her, the sharp spice of her rage mixed with the metallic tang that he’d come to associate with the al Ghul lineage. She growls low in her throat, and then she’s turning, her steps measured but the force behind them giving it all away. His door slams shut in her wake.

Silence is all he is left with. He waits for a quip, or a scolding. A reminder that he should not speak to his sister like that, or a warning that he should not goad a potential enemy into hating him more.

Damian reaches up to rub his face. Living only with the regret.  He crosses the room to his dressers. An outfit has already been prepared, lain out across the mahogany surface.

“She’s going to kill me, Alfred. If we’re here when I lose my mobility, she will kill me. Damn the consequences.” A glance to the door, Damian draws the simple clothes to him and grits his teeth - maternity clothing, elegant and in solid colors but as western as it comes, this is a costume if there ever was one. “She’s Bruce’s, alright.”

This does not make him look healthy. It makes him look pregnant, vulnerable, and _young_. It emphasizes the muscle tone he has not yet regained, the shape of his hips and the swelling of his stomach. Even padded slightly for the effect. Slightly too big on him to make him look  _smaller_ than he is, more the nineteen year old than the vicious ex-Regime member that people know him to be. He dresses in the bathroom, behind a locked door. 

The moment it is on, his fingers itch to tear it off. To shove his armor back on and arm himself with a weapon, present himself that way.  Proud, determined and defiant. A fighter, a  _warior_ , not a frightened pregnant teenager with no where else to go but to the family that tried to break him. This won’t work -- he has no idea what foolish idea his grandfather has in mind, but he knows all too well that the Batman sees vulnerability and fixates.

It’s why criminals have lived so long. Why thousands die and a few survive.

He can only save the lives right in front of him. Can only picture the last, helpless face that turned to him and begged for mercy.

“Surprise,” he says hollowly as he steps out of his washroom, shoving his hands through his hair - cut even now, faded down the sides. “You’re going to be a great-grandfather, Al.”

At the lack of response, Damian smiles grimly.

“That’s about how I feel too.

Jason greets him at the door, looking no more thrilled than he is. His eyes bounce from Damian's bare feet to the clingy grey fabric of his shirt, but mercifully he says nothing. Together the three of them make their way down the hall. There’s no explanation, no debrief, merely Talia pushing him forward and through a curtain where he stands beside his grandather, entering in the middle of the tirade.

“... but if you no longer care for Damian or your grandchild,” Ra’s steps aside and gestures to them. “Then perhaps you will come for your father.”

Damian’s back stiffens. His hands curl tighter around the arms of the chair, expression flashing panic for the briefest of moments -- Ra’s kneels closer and puts an arm around Alfred, his voice taking on a silky and dangerous tone.

“He may not be very animated, but he is breathing, Detective... For now. However, that can change very quickly. He wouldn’t even be able to put up a fight.”

And a gesture to Damian, a look out of the corner of his eye. There’s a coldness there, the Demon’s Head has killed countless children - some of other people, some his own - and Damian does not think even being favored would save him. The look has him near flinching, ready to fight should there be a show of force against him, unarmed and vulnerable.

“Nor would your son.”

Ra’s turns to the camera, ignoring the both of them.

“Stay out of our way, Detective.”

The broadcast must cut, because then Ra’s is walking away. Cold sweat drips down Damian’s nose, throat constricting around panic. None of what he said was untrue.

“Are you done?” Is what he manages, turning to look at the retreating form of his grandfather.

“I’m sorry, habibi. I know you don’t approve of my methods, and I know that this man means a lot to you - but if there were any other way, I would...”

“He doesn’t work like that!” Rage overtakes reason, he whips around to face him, hands gesturing before him. “He’ll come for Alfred! He’ll come for those children!”

“If the detective is sensible-”

“He’s not!”

“It doesn’t matter. Even Batman can’t find us here. Go back to your room and rest.”

* * *

 

“They’re in South America,” Batman says within moments of the broadcast ending, a map up on the screen. Behind him, the other parents are reeling from the sight of their unconscious children. From the threat of _murder_ if they try to stand against the League of Assassins, from the horrible possibility of genocide if they do not. His palms are sweating and his heart is racing, but he refuses to let it show.

For all Ra's might believe his bluster, his assertions that his son was dead to him, Damian is the furthest thing from it.

And they have Alfred too.

* * *

 

This mistake will cost them dearly. Bed rest is foregone in favor of babysitting.

They put him with the children because he’s omega, and because they think he can do this. Because they think instinct will guide him and he will be capable of handling them and soothing their terror.

He isn’t. There aren’t any maternal instincts rising to soothe them, only a flare of annoyance every time the volume pitches. Damian sees crying children and wants to recoil from them completely, but they insist -- insist -- that the smell of an omega will somehow soothe the children’s rattled nerves.

For every step forward there is a mile reversed.

He doesn’t smell like anything. Never has, doubts he ever will. Perhaps it was Talia’s meddling, perhaps it was the wayward puberty, but he doesn’t have any of that maternal instinct that people have always told him goes hand and hand with the capacity to birth. What he wants is to check on Alfred, to help the forces prepare for the inevitable onslaught - but there is no way he is winning this battle.

So he guards, he keeps calm with intimidation. That’s what he knows, that’s what they want, that’s what is easy.

He sits at the far end of the room with a book in his hand, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle in front of him. One of Black Lightning’s daughters is trying desperately to fight against the power dampener, but he had done the calibrations himself. The room is full of games and toys but nothing they can use to hurt anyone, anything too sharp or heavy had been removed. And anything they could overload with electricity to explode had been strictly vetoed.

Nobody is getting electrocuted today. And if Harley Quinn’s mad little brat thinks she’s going to make headway with nothing but her fists and a brash attitude, he’ll show her the error of his arrogance the same way he had been shown.

The only one that seems to be taking this with any sort of calm is the blonde child, though the calm seems more a careful facade then genuine ease. Damian appreciates it at once,

“Are you Damian Wayne?” The boy asks, a hand clenching the fabric of his shirt to steady his words and quell the tremble.

Damian licks his thumb and turns the page of his book. His eyes never appearing to leave the page, but he notes the child take a deep breath as he nods.

“I talked to your dad,” the blonde boy says, his eyes all green fire and fury at being caged. “He said he’s coming to get you.”

Of course he is. As if there were ever any question he would. The moment Ra’s took these children was the moment he guaranteed this would end the way all stands against the Bat typically did. You could win the battle, but you wouldn’t win the war.

Damian slips a finger between the pages and turns to look at him. At the bright blue of his eyes and the shock of wild blonde hair. He could stand and lord his height over him, to loom and look dark and imposing -- but what point is there to that? The boy would miss the finer details of his cool smile, the suggestion of bloodlust in his eyes. And he would miss the hand on his thigh resting just above a knife, suggesting that he has no qualms about thrusting it somewhere vital without a moment of hesitation.

“You might want to be worrying about yourself,” he says, and it’s the calm that always terrifies them. He inclines his head towards the gathering of girls, all eyes are on him. “Me? I like kids. But my time’s almost up, and the next guy prefers children to be seen. Not heard.”

Jason would never actually hurt a child, that much he’s certain of. He might threaten, he might scream, hell, he might even traumatize -- but violence against children was off limits, to all of them. Many of his morals had skewed during his extended time in the league, just as Damian’s had with the Regime, but some things remained resolute.

Even if he didn’t really like kids, especially not _these_ kids, he wasn’t a monster.

Connor Lance-Queen bites the inside of his cheek. Damian returns to the illusion of calm, at least until the boy gathers the courage to speak again.

“Your dad said you’re having a baby.”

“Pretty sure that’s not his story to be telling,” Damian clicks his tongue. “Or yours to be repeating. Did you not hear what I just said?”

“I did,” Connor isn’t backing down. In his peripheral vision he sees the boy puff up, bristling like a frightened cat. “This is a terrible place for a baby. And you’re -- “

“Children should be seen,” there’s a knife at the boy’s cheek faster than he can blink, the movement as natural and fluid as breathing, and Damian hasn’t looked away from his book. It’s not sharp enough to cut but is sharp enough to frighten. “Not heard.”

The fledgling arrow scampers back to his friends and all of them move away from him. Damian flicks the switchblade shut and slides it back into his pocket.

Athanasia appears in the doorway, looking annoyed -- when doesn’t she, he wonders -- and that is the signal that his shift is over. He stands, turning and giving the frightened children a mock two-fingered salute.

“You think my ego is bad? See how far you get on  _her_ nerves. She can afford to waste a few hostages.”

To them, he shows no pity. Not when they cower against the wall. No empathy. He cannot afford to in this situation, can't give them any room to think they might  _survive_ if they try to attack any of them - because there were no lies said. No  _exaggerations_ made.  The League would kill each and every one of them without a second thought, and they would sleep in their beds without a nightmare. To feel as if there was room for rebellion was to guarantee their deaths.

They had a week, maybe less, before his father showed up. Damian does not head for his quarters, but instead makes for the gym -- against orders, against warnings, but he refuses to be vulnerable when Batman would not be.

He was determined to have a fighting chance of freedom.


	5. Chapter 5

Damian has never been a sound sleeper. When one has grown up in the halls of the League of Assassins, one learns to rest with  _one eye open_. In the Watchtower he had learned to relax, allowing his guard to lower with the knowledge that the world’s most powerful men and women  were all around him. Now, being  _home_  again, he falls quickly into old habits.

It is made no easier by the knowledge of his new vulnerability, nor the fact that Alfred is helpless and prone less than a foot away. With Athanasia  _furious_ at his presence and resenting his status despite his sex, he’s certain that one of these mornings he will find her in his room with a dagger and a promise.

“You look like shit,” Jason tells him plainly two days after the broadcast, still clad in full Batman regalia. Were it not for the fact that he was armed with breakfast, Damian would have slammed the door in his face and told him where to go in no uncertain terms. The rumbling in his stomach wins out over pride - he steps aside, grunting in irritation as the older man passes by.

Clearly, Talia had taken the time to teach the man  _manners_  as well as  _assassination techniques_. Jason takes a moment to set the small table in the corner, dropping utensils and plates onto the surface in a way slightly above haphazard and taking the seat furthest from Damian.

“I dare you to endure those little hellbeasts for as long as I have and look anything other than exhausted,” he grunts, sliding into the chair and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. 

“Says the expecting omega,” Jason chuckles out, folding his arms behind his head and leaning back in his chair. 

Damian’s fork pauses halfway to his mouth. Appetite abruptly souring, he drops it back on the plate and exhales sharply.

Jason tilts his head back and blinks owlishly at him from behind the mask. Damian waits for a stupid comment, fingers curling around the butter knife - ready to make a show of what an  _omega_  can do if he tests his patience.

“What did I say?” The alpha asks after a moment of terse silence, a lackadaisical smile tugging at his lips. He knows his error, of course - Jason Todd may play the perfect fool, but he is far from it. “Enlighten me, Dames. I don’t  _speak_  cryptic.”

Damian only glares.

“It’s not a dirty word, kid.” The good humor of his voice drops away, replaced instead with a somber  _something_  Damian doesn’t want to think about. 

He turns his attention back to his plate, pouring a liberal amount of syrup over the mound of pancakes and spooning berries onto his plate. No doubt these were special made, not for  _his_  tastes but for Jason’s. Something to harken back to their youth, when Alfred would break up fights with a token of good will. Perhaps hoping to stuff them too full to argue any more.

He takes a bite and chews. Jason watches and waits, knowing that if he  _can outlast_  him he has won this battle of wills. All that fills the room is the clatter of fork against plate, and the quiet  _flick_  of Jason thumbing a zippo lighter on and off.

He would thank him for not smoking, were he not such a  _braying jackass_  at the moment.

“... It is in these walls.” He concedes, nearly five minutes later. “Being an omega is to be unworthy of the al Ghul name.”

“Says who?” Jason prompts, and that is all it is. A prompt. A nudge to get him speaking.

“Who do you  _think_?” He grunts in turn, lowering his eyes to the floor. It is more in his nature to challenge, to  _fight_ , but he doesn’t feel up for this. “If Mother had told him what I was - that I  _wasn’t_  an Alpha, I would never have been permitted to train.”

“Yeah, because  _that_ made for a healthy childhood.” Jason says, sarcasm thick in his voice. Again, he is met with a glare. The taller man holds up his hands, apologetic. “Sorry, sorry, just pointing out the obvious here. Talia knew and hid it? I’m just trying to understand the full picture.”

“Of course Mother  _knew_ ,” Damian snips. “How would she not? This was her decision.”

“But there was always the chance you could’ve gone female,” he points out, ignoring or  _missing_  the way Damian tenses. “Third sex goes either way, right?”

“I’m male.”

“I get that, kiddo. I’m just saying that you’re kind of b-”

“I am  _male_ ,” he snaps, enunciating every word. “Regardless of what is between my legs, or on my chest, regardless if I am carrying or not, I am a  _male_. What my body can or can not do does not supersede who I am.... People here would not see it that way... Athanasia is alpha. All that means is she has more testosterone. If we had been raised together, if they had known, then the moment I entered puberty I would have been removed as heir and reduced to a potential bride for political influence. Ra’s trusts alpha instincts, he does not believe in omegas in power. It does not matter if they are male or female.”

A sharp exhale, he brings a hand up to rub his temples. The torrent of words leaves him feeling dizzy and vulnerable in a way he doesn’t like, but it isn’t giving Jason any ammunition he can  _use_. Any blackmail had gone out the window the moment he was identified as pregnant, everything  _else_  is just exposition.

“It’s stupid to tell someone what they are based upon secondary sex characteristics. Even if I had presented as an Alpha, I would still be male.”

To his surprise, Jason merely nods. As if this all made sense - he hadn’t imagined it  _would_ , Talia had scarcely understood it. She had wanted a tiny carbon copy of his father, she had made those decisions selfishly, not knowing they would benefit her son. “So why not tell B? Why hide it?”

Damian looks up at him, brow furrowed as he tries to discern if this is a serious inquiry. He’s nearly stunned for a moment before he pushes the plate forward and leans back, arms folding across his chest.

“Has there  _ever_ been an omega Robin, Todd?”

Jason considers, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. The man was in sore need of a shave, the moment Damian had the opportunity he was sure to take a razor to him to  _do_  something about it. No man wearing the cowl should look that bedraggled.  “Stephanie Brown. She was an omega.”

“But she was not appointed by my father, she appointed herself against his wishes,” Damain points out. “And he fired her.”

“That wasn’t because she was an omega.”

“Can you be so certain?” Damian shakes his head, disgust etched into his every feature. “My father views the world in black and white. Even if he does not want to admit it, even if he will deny it, he has his prejudices. Omegas, like my grandmother, are to be protected. Alphas, like my grandfather, are protectors. I have seen him inflict brutality upon alphas but spare omegas who have done worse or are less repentant the same fate.

“Watch,” he continues, and there’s a  _bitter_  note to this voice. “Now that he knows what I am, his opinion will change. I will lose the agency I have fought so hard to hold - I will become a victim in his eyes, and he will welcome me home to fix and protect me and it.”

“You know the whole time you’ve been here,” Jason says after a short silence. “I haven’t heard you talk once about what’s actually going on.”

“What do you mean?”

“The baby. You haven’t said a word about it... in fact, you’ve just been calling it an  _it_.”

He gives a shake of his head, resisting the urge to upend the table to end this conversation here and now. 

“Damian, kid.” Jason  _presses_  and he feels his hackles raise.

“It’s Clark’s,” he answers sharply. “Just Clark’s.”

“I know that, but-”

“No. It’s  _Clark’s._  I’m doing it as a favor to him. Do you think my father’s going to be able to hold him forever?” Damian snorts. “Once he’s out - he won’t be  _the last one_  anymore. I hand it over to him. This is just a favor.”

Jason’s jaw tightens. “Babies aren’t  _favors_.”

“Not everyone is fit to be a parent, Todd,” he snaps in turn, his face heating with rage. “I think you of all people would know  _that_. Clark will be a  _parent_ , I am-”

“You’re what?”

“ _Ill suited_. I am lacking in those instincts.”

Jason looks at him for a long moment, studying him in a way that he hates. Ever since he’d stumbled into the manor he had had difficulties with this particular  _boy wonder_. Grayson and Drake had both been older, weathering the newest sibling with an almost  _parental_  affection.

Jason, however...

“That’s bullshit,” he settles, giving his head a shake with a bitter laugh. “Kid, you used to bring home boxes of stray kittens. Every single one had a name and a feeding schedule.”

 “Kittens are not human infants,” Damian seethes. “Infants are small and noisy and  _delicate_ , I am ill-suited to care for them. Loathed as I am to admit it, he never let me keep those for a reason.”

“But Dick would have,” Jason replies, and at  _that_  the room goes still. Damian feels his heart give an uncomfortable, agonizing squeeze that leaves him feeling breathless. “Dick was pushing to get you a pet every time he was in the manor.”

“And father said-”

“Look,” he continues, heedless of Damian’s restraint. “I don’t know what Bruce has got you thinking about yourself, but whatever it is? It’s wrong. You’re beyond fucked up with a temper to match, but you care. Probably too much.

“If you didn’t, you wouldn’t even be thinking about this. And honestly? Getting attached is good for you.”

“I am not attached,” he snaps automatically. “Where wold you get a ridiculous idea like that?”

“Yeah?” Jason tilts his head, his smile positively smug. “You only  _avoid_   _things_ if you’re afraid of getting attached.”

Both hands come down on the table. Damian stands so quickly it upends his chair, sending it crashing to the ground. His brother jumps at the noise, hands automatically going to his weapons despite the  _obvious_  on front of him. The good humor of their banter dries up in an instant and Jason is no longer smiling. 

He looks concerned.

Damian  _hates_  that more than anything.

“Well maybe the concept of having it  _taken_  the minute it came out of me has made that a little  _difficult_ ,” he spits, surprised to find himself shaking a little. “This is not  _my_  burden, Todd. This child is already spoken for one way or another. I am a host, not a parent. Leave it be.”

He gestures to the door, gaze locking on the wall.

“Now take your mess and get out. I have things to do today.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next few chapters are going to be pretty heavy, so i might splice in some bonding moments between both factions before things really start going to hell. so here are some ex-robins alluding to things and damian continuing to push everything aside.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: injustice bruce is kind of a bastard and damian is a glutton for punishment. there's fighting and consequences to fighting.

““I gotta admit, Bruce. I was  _surprised_  to hear from you.... I thought the agreement was I stay in the slow lane and you stay in yours?”

Barry Allen hasn’t changed much since the fall of the Regime. He looks a little older, maybe. Aged underneath the cowl, more  _tired_  than Bruce had ever seen him.  

They’re all tired.

“It was,” he replies. “but things change. The League of Assassins is making a move to pick up where the Regime left off.”

Barry pushes the brim of his hat up, jaw setting. “I don’t want to get involved, Bruce. Not again. Not after-”

“They have hostages,” Bruce interrupts. “Connor Lance-Queen is among them, along with Anissa and Jennifer Pierce.” 

“ _Connor_?” He doesn’t think he heard a word after that, how could he? The baby had gone missing from the hospital after Dinah had  _died_ , they’d thought the worst.. “But I thought--”

“Black Canary and Green Arrow are waiting in the Batcave.  _Our_  Black Canary.”

“And a different Arrow...” He finishes, hat now off his head. His fingers work through the tangle of blonde hair, sweat-damp under the hot Australian sun. “Bruce, I -- you said it yourself. The Regime shouldn’t be interfering with anything, it sends the wrong sort of  _message_...”

“They have Alfred, Barry.” And that alone is probably enough - but Bruce sighs through his nose, trying to set complicated feelings aside for the sake of the  _mission_. “And... Damian.”

There’s a pause. He can see - however briefly - the moment of shock that passes through the speedster’s mind. Then followed immediately by  _concern_.

Bruce doesn’t know what to do with concern.

“They have  _Damian_?”

“They do.” It’s Bruce’s turn to pause, to look at the reaction before him and  _compartmentalize_  how to deal with it. “Though given his status within the League, I suspect he’ll be treated better than the others. However, even with a blood tie, Ra’s’ patience is limited.”

There’s an  _attempt_ to joke. “And the kid’s hard to deal with even on his best days.”

The bat’s lips quirk into the slightest of smiles. One that Barry returns, dropping his hat back onto his head.

“Alright, well... I can see why you need  _speed_... I guess...”

“I need it for more than that.” All cards need to be on the table - or as many as he’s willing to reveal. “He’s six months pregnant. I have no doubt that’s why the League took him hostage.”

Barry’s sunburnt face goes pale.

* * *

 

Animals have always been easier to relate to than  _people_. Damian supposes that it only makes sense that animal  _people_  were easier too. 

Animal Man is a kindred spirits. He knows it at once. When he finds him in the gardens after his grandfather’s strategy meetings, tending to the various animal species that Ra’s has preserved over the years, there’s an  _understanding_  that these are his people. Damian finds himself in the gardens when he can’t think, and despite himself he finds himself getting  _attached_.

Buddy beckons him closer. When he didn’t move, the man laughs and smiles good naturedly. A smile that doesn’t  _belong_ in these walls. “Hey, it’s alright! I don’t bite. Come here.”

He does. He walks up to the enclosure, rests a hand on the rail and looks at the gathering of creatures around them. Predators locked in their own enclosure, prey animals gathering in mismatched herds of the very  _last_  the world has to offer. A faint smile threatens to break out across his face, and he  _remembers_  why he had once believed so fervently in the cause.

“Your mother tells me you’re an animal lover,” Buddy says brightly. His hand gently ruffles through the fur of a massive, shaggy elk who saunters past without a care.

“I enjoy their company from time to time,” he concedes, eyes roving from the bright butterflies to the grazing deer. “You have done wonders. The last I was here, grandfather could scarcely keep a stable breeding pair together. The population has exploded.”

“Ra’s is a better assassin than he is a zookeeper,” Buddy quips, and there’s a small smile of amusement. 

“Did you spend much time here?” Buddy asks, just as the creatures decide to step towards him.

“I never had time,” Damian says, sitting down in the soft grass and reaching a hand out. The fawns stumble forward on unsteady legs, snuffling at his fingertips for treats. “My studies kept me in the inner sanctum or travelling around the world, I didn’t have time for animals... But I had a mount.”

“A horse?” Buddy asks, and for a moment he remembers his mother’s stories of Alexander the Great and his mighty steed. How she had dreamed of him astride a horse, dominating the world and pulling it under his control.

“No. That would be too conventional for an al Ghul... Goliath was a dragon bat. The very last of his kind.” The deer nips at his gloves impatiently. He pulls a handful of grass from the earth and offers it instead. “He was in Metropolis.”

They’re silent for a moment. Everyone had lots something that day - family, friends,  _innocence_. Goliath was on loan to Tim, he doesn’t even remember what  _for_. Just that Drake had asked to borrow him and Damian had grudgingly allowed it. The bat had needed to flex his wings, and with things between his father and him so  _tense,_  he hadn’t wanted to take him out at the risk of another argument boiling over. Another  _accusation_  of his bloodthirsty nature and he was sure he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from  _showing_  Bruce just how bloodthirsty he could be.

But he hadn’t. Hadn’t  _wanted_  to. Hadn’t wanted to worry his father, hadn’t wanted for him to think he was  _right._

Things hadn’t been the same since Jason.

Then Tm was gone. Goliath was gone. Dick was gone. And it hadn’t mattered. He should have taken a crowbar to the clown and damned the consequences.

“Sooner or later, People will realize Batman can’t protect them. He can’t protect anyone.” He says after a moment, more to himself than them, hands moving to cradle the face of the tiny animal before him. His fingers scratch behind it’s ears. Liquid black eyes peer back, the very personification of  _innocence_.  “But... I didn’t think you’d follow my grandfather.”

“I admit... I was hesitant. But when I saw what Ra’s had done here, what he could preserve...”

Buddy nods to follow him, Damian returns to Alfred and takes the handles of his chair.

“I’ve witnessed mankind's greatest cruelties. Their callousness. Be it animals or humans, the worst of them care little for death so long as it benefits them,” Buddy gestures at the creatures around them. “I connect with these creatures when I use their power. I feel their life, their death, their story... we’ve lost  _half_  the world’s wildlife in the last thirty years. I don’t want to  _hurt_  anyone, but humanity needs to stop taking more than their share.”

“We’ve killed people. All those guards. Kidnapped children,” Damian says, haltingly.  It’s a pretty sentiment, to be sure. Sentiments don’t translate to reality. 

“To stop your father.” Buddy replies, some of the warmth disappearing in his voice. “We took Alfred and we took the children. And we did it for the greater good. Are their lives worth the planet?” 

He stops and shakes his head.

“I don’t really know the answer, myself... but I know we took them to stop Batman and his allies.”

Leggy, awkward newborn elks and deer stumble around on shaky limbs, still unused to supporting weight. A new generation lives where there should only be death.

“I like Bruce, I’ve fought beside him. He’s even saved my life. There’s a lot to admire about him, but... he’s inflexible,” Buddy continues as they walk.

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“For all he tries to appear detached, he’s a man driven by emotion. Consumed by the short term, never minding the long term consequences. A human life before his eyes is worth more than anything they might do. He could have ended the Joker’s life so many times, but... He didn’t. He knew what we all knew. That every time he allowed the Joker to live, he was condemning more to death.”

“I know.” Damian’s voice goes hollow. “I’ve had that fight with him.”

“The nuking of metropolis. The destruction of our world. Superman’s tyrannical reign. All of it is rooted in Batman’s actions.”

“I know,” he says again, his voice a touch hollow. “I told him the same thing.”

“There’s nothing Vixen, Ivy and I won’t do to protect this sanctuary,” Buddy says, and the kindness in his voice is back. A hand claps on his shoulder. “And everyone and everything inside of it.

“And it’s very appreciated,” Ra’s replies as he steps through the archway. Vixen and Jason flank him. She takes Buddy’s hands and pulls him aside, sharing the wonderful news - the tasmanian tiger is pregnant. The species will continue on. They won’t be the last.

Jason comes to his side, bending down to look at Alfred. “Still hasn’t spoken?”

Damian shakes his head

“Don’t lose heart, Damian,” Ra’s says gently. “It once took nearly a year for me to return to myself after the Lazarus pit. Your mother never gave up on me. Alfred will return to you.”

He almost smiles.  _Almost_. 

But the sight of Athanasia running towards them tells him all he needs to  _know_.

“We have a problem with the surveillance in the North entrance,” she says, and his hands tighten on the wheelchair handles. 

“No, we don’t,” Ra’s says, immediately dismissing her confusion. “Your father has decided to grace us with his presence.”

“I can track him,” Buddy steps forward. “Just--”

“No, Animal Man. You’re needed here. And it’s all right.”  Ra’s smiles pleasantly. 

“I don’t know how Bruce found us,” Jason says as he moves to stand, eyes narrowing behind the red glow of the cowl. “But we’re ready for him.”

His hand lifts to his earpiece. “El Diablo. Do it. Scorched Earth.”

At once there is a  _rumbling_  in the facility.

“What was that?” Damian feels something like dread settle in the pit of his stomach, a stone cold realization that they truly have no idea what they’re doing.

“That,” Jason flashes him a smile, something more akin to a snarl. “Was the only exist being turned into molten metal. They might be in here, but they’re not getting  _out_.”

Then they’re talking among themselves. Athanasia stays rooted to the spot as the team begins talking, turning to look at him as they’re both left out of this plan. There’s some kind of understanding there, a sinking feeling he doesn’t like.

Soon they’re alone in the room. Buddy gestures for him to sit but he shakes his head. 

They need to be ready.

* * *

 

They decide to strike. With the Flash on their side, they have a far better chance of getting in and out with little trouble.

Bruce offers the chance of a field Blue Beetle. Untested, young and  _brash_. 

It’s a mistake he comes to regret.

Bruce pummels his way through the forces that come at him. Jason fights valiantly, but it takes only about forty minutes for their forces to be completely overwhelmed. They underestimate the Bat, and none of the assassins are strong enough to kill a man who thrives in combat.

* * *

 

“We have a problem,” Athanasia is every bit as dangerous as their mother in that moment, her blue eyes burning with  _rage_  and bloodlust. “Most of the Suicide Squad isn’t responding. Batman is coming.”

“No,” Damian replies, voice  _harsh_. His grandfather is an idiot and  _anyone fool_  who has tangled with the Batman knows that taunting him is a mistake. “He’s already here. Athanasia, alert grandfather. Vixen, secure the perimeter. Animal Man, guard Alfred.”

They turn to say something and then he’s gone. Disappeared into the shadows, lying in wait. They won’t be able to stop him,  _he knows this_  but they can stop his friends.

And if this is a one on one fight, he can handle it.

Buddy doesn’t know what to expect.  He’s more worried about Damian than  _himself._  He’s too  _kind_ , too damn  _soft_. Batman hits him from behind and  _nothing_  could have prepared him for that, he goes down in an unconscious heap that no longer matters o the Bat. Bruce appears from the shadows, crouching down next to Alfred’s wheelchair. Speaking his name softly - but Damian is  _quicker_. His hand grabs his father’s shoulder and wrenches him back and away from the butler.

“Damian, what you’ve done here...”  His father sounds  _disappointed, but he knows better. H_ e hates the cowl, he hates that he can’t see how much Bruce is  _lying_  to himself with every word. 

“Is what you  _should have done_!” 

“This is _wrong_.”

“You _let him die_! And you think  _I’m_  in the wrong!?” 

“I didn’t-”

“You know what?” Damian spits, hands balled to fists. Every part of him tense and ready to strike, ready to  _die_  before he’ll ever bend a knee to his father. “I losing people makes this  _easier_  for you. That’s how you justify doing this, how youjustify _all the violence that you use._  Some part of you thinks that you’re the victim, and makes it  _easier_  to cripple everyone around you.  That’s it, isn’t it? For Batman to fight his crusade, you  _need people who care about you to-”_

He doesn’t manage another word. There’s a fist coming at his face, hard and fast, and even at his best he wouldn’t be able to dodge it. Damian feels it connect and reels back, staggering a half-step and  _there it is_. The man beneath the mask. The cold fury he knows all too well, that false compassion is ripped away and there’s the  _anger_  underneath.

Damian wipes his bleeding nose with the back of his hand, glancing down at the streak of crimson it leaves. The rage on his father’s face lingers for just a moment longer before evaporating into horror. He starts to speak and  _chokes_  on the words _, but he knows_   what he wants to say.

( That was a mistake, Bruce wants to say. )

“Yeah,” Damian looks up, eyes flashing. “That’s it,  _dad_.”

“I’m taking Alfred.” The Batman’s voice is utterly unaffected. “Come with me.”

“Where? Home?”

“Yes, after you serve your time.”

( You made me do it, the Batman justifies. )

 _See how it feels_ , he wants to snarl.  _See what one moment of lost composure can do_?

“So you’re offering to lock me up,” he laughs, voice  _cold_. “You’re  _so_  bad at this! And you are not  _taking Alfred anywhere_!”

It’s a fight. It always ends in a fight. Damian dashes forward, drives his fist  _hard_  into his father’s stomach. The other fist connecting with the side of his head before spreading, grabbing the cowl by one pointed ear and using the momentum to drive it down onto his raised knee. 

(  _stop this_ , someone screams. he thinks it might be barbara. she never liked him anyway. )

Bruce grabs his arm at the next swing, stopping his momentum. He’s swung around, altered center of gravity making it impossible to recover, and his father’s shoves his full force against the limb. He hears his arm break more than he  _feels_  it and lets out a guttural cry. His knees give out from under him and he drops, dangling in Bruce’s grip.

“I didn’t want to do that,” he’s saying, but as if he’d whapped a hand instead of snapping a limb. “Damian. Stand down.”

It’s an ultimatum. Omega or not, pregnant or not, this is how it always is. It didn’t matter when he was a child, it didn’t matter when he was small and lost and  _grieving_. Bruce knows only force and might, compassion has never existed within the Batman.

He shuts his eyes and collects himself, biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood as he struggles to get his feet under him.”You’re going to have to make me.”

His father’s eyes shut for a moment, a sigh of resignation parting his lips. Damian knows at once that he’s calculating how far he can push, how many hits he can  _take. His eyes open_  and there is no warmth there. He has judged Damian and found him  _deserving_  of this. “Done.”

He shuts his eyes and braces himself for the hit.

“Bruce.”

An arm snaps out to catch his father’s before the blow can be delivered. His broken arm is dropped and he collapses onto his knees again, heaving through his nose to push back the nauseating pain.

“Alfred?”

“Stop fighting. Calm down. It’s all right, son.”

Alfred is up and between them. Pulling his father away from him, his voice gentle and minding the anger.

Bruce relents. Alfred pulls back with a gentle smile and for a moment, it’s as if all it’s truly right with the world. 

“Alfred? Are you all right?” Damian doesn’t recognize his own voice, it comes out too  _small_  and strangled. 

“Just fine, Master Damian. I just need to rest for a moment,” the butler assures, turning to him with a smile.

He steps back from the Dark Knight and moves towards the chair with careful steps. Bruce left too  _stunned_  to do anything, but the first sign of a wobble and Damian is on his feet. 

He’s nearly knocked back by his father, throwing himself between them.

“Don’t  _touch_  him,” his father snaps, and Damian balls his good hand into a fist - ready to hit.

“Stop it, both of you!” Alfred shouts, startling the both of them. “I don’t know what is going on, or how much I’ve missed.  _Forgive each other_ or this madness won’t stop.”

“Alfred...”

“Master Bruce, Damian never meant to hurt anyone. You have been told time and  _time_  again. And Master Damian, he -”

“He let you  _die_ , Alfred.”

“No. He didn’t. You know this, Damian, he would  _never_. Your father has done what he has had to-”

“Is this,” Damian asks, extending his arm for the man to see, his voice low and  _dangerous_. “Just doing what he  _has to_ , Alfred?”

“I warned you,” Bruce raises his voice, Alfred whips around to stop him but it’s already too late. “I didn’t want to, you left me no choice.”

“When is this  _ever_  a choice?!” Damian explodes, body trembling with rage and pain. He sweeps a hand towards his father, towards Alfred. Sees the automatic protective step Bruce takes and hates him all the more for it. “I went to you to  _escape_  them!”

His arm swings back to the al Ghuls. They take no offense at the movement. If anything, Athanasia looks ready to leap upon their father and rip him to shreds for his actions. Talia stands with a hand on her sword, and they are all  _horrendous_  but the care makes his chest ache.

“I went to you to have a  _life!_  Only you never wanted me! You never even  _liked me_! You just wanted to use me like  _everybody else_  does, in your little war! And the people that  _did_  like me, the ones who  _never_  wanted anything all died because  _you wouldn’t do what needed to be done!_ Even after that bastard took  _Jason_ , you wouldn’t  _put him down_! You wouldn’t even put him in another  _prison_! Not even after Lois, and Tim, and  _everyone_!”

He feels his father’s eyes on him. Sees the tiny part of his mouth, the  _confusion_  - like he doesn’t recognize the boy standing in front of him. As if the words coming out of his mouth were in another language, impossible to decipher.

“You deserve to rot,” he snarls, his voice full of  _revulsion._  “Whatever you  _think_ , you’re not the other Batman. You’re not a symbol for hope, you’re a  _delusional old man_  who only thinks he knows everything!”

“Master Damian,” Alfred takes a step forward, his hand reaching - but Damian wrenches away from it, hatred burning in his eyes. The hurt in the old man’s face is impossible to ignore, but he can’t - not another excuse, not another explanation, no more  _false hope_. “Please. I don’t know what has gone on, but-”

“You’re right, Alfred, you don’t,” Ra’s says smoothly, stepping forward. Talia is barely a half-step behind him, swords in hand. The elite guard is here and they’re having no more of this. His father’s allies brace themselves, knowing combat is inevitable.  “What kind of man beats his pregnant son so  _viciously_? You ask me to ally with the Dark Knight? Perhaps in his glory days, but - now he is little better than the Kryptonian tyrant who ruled before him. He is incapable of compromise.”

“He doesn’t know the meaning of the word,” Damian agrees, loathing dripping from every word. 

There's no further discussion. No further  _thought_ as a sound far worse than the distant  _crashing_  of Diablo melting the north entrance, something directly above them.

Damian jerks his head up. Whatever else was to be said is immediately forgotten.

Athanasia leaps at the opportunity to finish where her brother left off. Damian is in no shape to battle, nor does he  _want_  to. As angry as he might be, there is  _no reason_  to lose Alfred a second time to his father’s senseless chaos. Everything devolves to fighting before he can even  _blink_.

He slides Alfred’s around his neck and sets off at the fastest pace he can muster.

But it’s no good. He recognizes that flash of blue in the sky just as the glass above them  _shatters_. Damian pulls Alfred close, shielding him with his body - but they’re safe, far enough from the shards to only endure minor scrapes.

The Tasmanian Tiger is not so lucky. Vixen is  _howling_  and Animal Man is slowly getting to his feet, becoming aware.

Blue Beetle is every bit the idiot Damian thought him to be. Diablo starts to shout for him  _not to shoot_  and his father’s voice joins the din, but he doesn’t listen.

The next few things happen so quickly he can’t process. Diablo is  _consumed_  in flame, it’s an  _explosion_  and -

He’s tossed, hard, onto his side skidding across the floor until his back collides with something solid and  _warm_. Pain explodes up his hip, Damian hisses through grit teeth and tries to sit up - but another body is tossed onto him, one he catches instinctively and holds close to shield from the damage. It reeks of blood and burnt hair, Damian can only  _wince_ \- then the world is dark and the rage of  _fire_  is all over them. It happens in an instant, too quick to follow.

“Diablo’s gone,” a familiar voice says halfway across the room, red costume slightly singed and his expression beyond remorseful. He’s talking to Bruce at a million miles a moment, gesturing wildly. “I saved as many as I could, but-”

Damian isn’t listening.

Their shield is slowly parting, resolving itself into a half-melted man struggling to pull himself together. Plastic Man has seen  _better days._ His son is no better - but all eyes are on the horror that the light reveals.

The body in his arms is his  _sister_. Nearly burnt beyond recognition, her breathing shallow and irregular. Damian’s sitting up, trying to find a way to  _hold her_  that doesn’t cause pain. His mother drops down next to him and he holds her out, feeling  _blood_  and skin linger where she touched.  

“Athanasia! Athanasia, stay with me!”  Talia wraps her arms around her daughter with a distraught sound, has the same crisis. There is no where to touch that isn’t  _bloodied._ Jason moves closer, gently hooking his arms around Damian to help him stand.

It  _hurts_  to stand. He nearly buckles until his grandfather moves to support him.

“You come here,” Ra’s voice is trembling. One arm is around Damian’s shoulders, the other gestures to Talia - clutching his sister to her chest and moving to stand, speaking in a  _soothing voice_  that is betrayed by the look of anguish.. “To hurt your son and daughter in this way, risking  _a lifetime_  of work. And for  _what_  detective?”

“Daughter..?” Batman takes a half-step forward, perhaps to help. But Jason’s firing at his feet, moving to  _finish the job_  - until Ra’s throws his other arm out, stopping him in his tracks. Instead he gestures to the doors to the inner sanctum,  _this has concluded_.

Damian knows a decision had been made. That the plans have now changed, tipped from a gentle correction to  _war_. Damian's feet don't want to move right, he leans against his grandfather and tries to push past the pain and dizziness threatening to overtake him.

“It’s over, Detective. You can have the children and you can have Alfred.” 

“What have you done, Ra’s?”

The man does not turn, does not dignify the answer. He holds Damian closer to him and Damian feels the tremor of rage running through him. “Any merciful thought I had of sparing you, for my daughter, for my  _grandchildren_  was wiped out with this sanctuary”

“Ra’s!” Batman takes an angry step forward, but the fight is done. Even he knows that, there's no point in continuing to wage war when his daughter is dying. But he  _wants to_. And that's what Damian  _hates_ about him. That he could, and he would, and if he wasn't alone then he would. His concern remains for anyone but his own children, his own flesh and blood. 

“You are just lucky your arrogance and brutality did not claim the next generation as well.”

* * *

 

Once the doors had slammed shut behind him, once he was no longer fueled by pure anger and fear, he recognizes the sharp pain in his chest and abdomen. It no longer bleeds in with every other sense, with every other injury, he distinguishes it from the throbbing off his broken arm and the smarting of his fractured nose. 

Ra’s asks him something, but he does not catch it. There’s something damp running down his legs. He staggers in his grandfather’s grip - Ra’s wastes little time in gathering the boy up into his arms and hurrying his pace down the hall.

“Damian?”

“Something’s wrong,” he mutters, his own voice  _distant_  and echoing. “Grandfather, something is...”

The last thing he hears before the world fades is his mother shouting his name.

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one took longer than planned.
> 
> but here's where things are going to get different.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a warning for a frank discussion about assault and the abuse of trust. nothing graphic is said but words are not minced about how terrible what happened to damian is.

When he wakes, they are in King Solovar’s palace.

Human medics are tending to his wounds. Moving around him so swiftly and silently he knows them to be his grandfather’s personal staff. They don’t speak to him, they don’t acknowledge him, they only set bone and administer medication. His arm is broken, but it is a clean break - it will heal quickly. He will be on bedrest for the next week - it would be longer, and he would be in  _far_  more danger were it not for the technology available to the al Ghuls. The same things that granted him a new spine and organs stabilize the discord inside his body, harmonizing it with the life growing inside.

They tell him he had been at a greater risk for a heart attack than a miscarriage.

Even so, it was close. Far too close. He could have died then and there, and the only solution to that would have been the pits themselves.

They tell him it was a panic attack. The complications with the pregnancy were still present, but they posed more a danger to him than anything else - lord knew they could spare the baby over the mother if they needed to - that there was more bruising than anything else, that his blood pressure had spiked and he had seized again - and that he was best to remain in bed for the time being. Where once he might have argued, now he merely nodded and shut his eyes. What he needs to know he gleans from them when they think he's asleep, talking quietly amongst themselves.

Of the thousand extinct species preserved in the sanctuary, they lost but only thirty. Flash had been quick, stopping a  _total extinction._ The most delicate ones died due to smoke inhalation or the stress of the move. The Flash had done his due-diligence, and Ra’s had said he would spare him if given the opportunity.

But only if.

Eventually true exhaustion wins out over the need for information. He drifts, and he sleeps deeply.

“Damian,” Talia greets him softly when wakes again, gently pushing his hair from his face. Her touch is a balm against his overheated skin. He leans into it despite himself and she doesn’t object, merely cradles his face as if he is still the babe she used to rock to sleep with stories of conquest and justice. “It is too dangerous for you to remain with us.”

“Mother, I,” Damian tries to sit up, but her hand stills him.

“Hush,” she strokes her thumb across his cheek. “You are unwell, you are a target, and you are with child. You do not belong on the front lines. But do not mistake this as a punishment.”

She tips his chin up to look at her.

“We are sending you to Kahndaq to ask for the aid of it’s King in this war. Stay with him until your child has joined us, habibi. We will send for you when it is safe.”

His eyes shift to the bed next to him. To the sister laying prone and unconscious.

“Athanasia is to remain here,” she says before he can even ask. “We will take care of her and aid her recovery. You are the only member of the Regime on our side, and thus, the only one Black Adam will likely allow to stay.”

“I do not need to be protected,” he protests, finding his voice as he looks into her eyes. “Mother, I am not  _weak_. I have never needed shielding, I-”

“You do, you both do,” she insists, and there is grief in her eyes. “But you are within my power to save. Go, rest. Come back to us when you’ve recovered.”

* * *

 

The League is notified when Damian moves. The tracker is finally removed and destroyed - his direction is unclear, he's moving away from League settlements. After a long period of rest, it seems possible that they're simply moving him to another safe house - but the direction is all wrong. He isn't running from them, he's moving towards something.

“He could be running to Kahndaq for sanctuary,” Dinah points out. “It’s protected. Damian was injured in the fight... and trust me, as someone who has fought while pregnant, he’s getting too big to keep it up. It’s not a terrible place to lay low.”

Bruce gives a low, irritable grunt of acknowledgement, his eyes on the screen before him.

“Okay,  _but_ , how can we be sure this isn’t some plan to break ol’ Supes outta prison?” Harley shoots back, hands on her hips. “Maybe they’re getting the ol’ gang back together.”

She casts a suspicious glance back to the speedster in the group. The newest addition to the table didn’t seem to know how to feel about being here again, surrounded by all the people who knew and judge him best.

“Adam always liked him,” Barry ignores her comment, his expression souring a little as he says it. “He’d offer him a place to hide out. Hell, he’d probably give the kid citizenship if he asked.”

“Can’t rule it out. Whatever the League is planning seems big, and the kid might want a superpowered mate backing him up,” Ollie agrees, however uncomfortable the idea makes him.

“See? If Baby Bat went far enough to wanna have his  _baby_  then bustin’ him out gonna be top priority!” 

There’s a low murmur of agreement. Grudging and reluctant as some may be. It devolves into muttering, agreements and conversations within conversations. Damian was a threat. A pregnant threat. With a grudge against his father and if he’s running to Adam, he’s running away from the League. The kids an opportunist, the kid mated with  _Superman_  for --

“He didn’t,” Selina says loudly, cutting through the noise like a knife. “Damian didn’t seek Clark out.”

The bickering stops. The room falls to silence, all eyes falling to her. 

The former Regime members share an uncomfortable look.

This has always been the hardest part about having them on the team. Bruce had been reluctant to offer Barry a position - he had come in handy during the battle, but there were still secrets that they kept, still damage under the surface. He and Selina both never seemed comfortable with their role in things, leading what he can only take to be lies by omission. A fear of admitting just how deep their guilt ran.

“She’s right,” Barry speaks next, equally as reluctant, giving his head a shake that seems far too slow for a speedster. “Him and Clark? There wasn’t anything  _romantic_  there. Diana and Clark were practically playing  _house_ with him, for Christs sake. Damian was his  _son_.”

“When he talked me into joining he talked about Clark the way he used to talk about Bruce,” Selina nods, threading her fingers in front of her. “It wasn’t the way a teenage boy talks about a mate. I wouldn’t have bought into his pitch if it was.”

“So then... how?” Barbara asks, and at once they all know they don’t want to hear the answer.

The former members shift uncomfortably. Barry taps too quick fingers along the tabletop, and Selina stretches - catlike and uncomfortable. Waiting to see which one will crack first, which one will  _speak -_ and Barry is the first one to crack, scuffing his fingers through his hair and letting a sigh through his nose.

“From my understanding...” he says, and it hangs there for a moment. Uncertain, almost afraid to vocalize this thought. Perhaps the first time he has. He sighs heavily through his nose ad starts over, clearing his throat. “... Damian started to suffer side-effects from the superpills. Kid was using them way more than any of the rest of us, way  _longer_  than the rest of us, and it started to wear him down. After the thing with Zsasz he lost it completely. He smashed his knuckles to bits on a training dummy and kept hitting until Cyborg pulled him off. He was half wild. Superman put him in time-out after a physical showed an arrhythmia. Had him quit cold turkey so they could be sure nothing was really wrong.

“He was sick for a few days... The  _might not get better_  kind of sick. There were shifts watching him, making sure he didn’t keel over like Renee Montoya did.” Bruce flinches at the words, hands curling to loose fists. “Cyborg spent the most time in there. He and the kid were close, but - Damian started to reek.”

It isn’t hard to imagine what comes next.

“A heat.” Dinah says quietly.

“Yeah. A heat. A bad one. Even the aliens were out of sorts. But Kryptonians? Aren’t trinary. No mating impulse. He said he could smell it, but it wasn’t bothering him So he was the logical babysitter.” Barry stops, working his fingers through his hair. Letting it stay there for a moment.  “... Clark told everyone he was bringing Damian to his room to keep an eye on him and would bring him out once it was safe... And I...”

He stops again. Glances to Bruce, apology written across his face.

“I think the general consensus was that Clark was just keeping him company and making sure he didn’t have a heart attack... lie to yourself enough and it becomes truth.  The kid called him dad when he wasn’t paying attention. We ribbed him for it. He didn’t want him. Not like that.”

The silence is deafening.

 Bruce feels himself tremble, there’s red in the corners of his eyes as he forces himself to continue listening. To absorb this knowledge, to understand what it all meant. Pieces click into place, horror dawning on him. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and bangs his fist on the table, hard, making them all jump. Though grit teeth he hisses out only a few words before the rage overpowers his will to speak. 

“You all just let it happen?” It’s Harley who speaks, horror creeping into her voice. “You didn’t-”

“We didn’t do a lot of things,” Barry replies, guilt heavy across his shoulders. “Got easier to turn the other cheek.”

“He was just a kid!” Harley shoots back. “You shoulda been watchin’ out for him! What kinda  _family_  lets a super crazy  _super tyrant_  take the  _kid in heat_  somewhere nobody can supervise? You all call  _me_  crazy!”

“ He was an assassin from the time he could walk. We thought that he could handle himself,” Selina cuts in. “Damian has never been a child.”

“He was never allowed a childhood,” Alfred corrects, speaking from the doorway. The group’s attention snaps to him - Barbara is on her feet, ready to assist him to a chair - but he waves her off, shaking her head.  “His mother robbed him of that right. But that doesn’t mean he was never a  _child_.”

Bruce won’t look at him.

“If Damian’s in Kahndaq then leave him be.” Alfred’s eyes are boring into him, he struggles to meet the accusatory gaze evenly. “Let him heal and approach him when you’re ready to truly  _forgive him.”_

Part of him holds fast to the old theories.

To the memory of his son, stone-faced and brutal above a body. Remembering the angry little monster who had come to him, fresh from Ra’s al Ghul’s brutal training regime.

“Clark has been asking for an audience with me since the break-in,” All eyes dart to their leader.  Bruce feels that rage building. Leaving him breathless and wanting to  _hit_ , to crush, to  _hurt_. To take Kryptonite to Clark and  _break_  him... but he can’t afford to, not now, not  _ever_.  “I have some questions I’d like to ask him. That takes priority over finding Damian.”

A stop. He has to draw a breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. He’s tired, he needs to  _sleep_ , but he thinks of Commissioner Gordon, of how the pills had slowly eroded his heath, of Renee and how she’d become so warped by grief she’d been willing to  _kill_...

Of Damian, standing in the bat cave. So frightened he’d taken an  _experimental drug_  before coming home, so scared that the second he’d been touched he’d lashed out. So afraid of his father’s brutal retribution that he’d hidden behind an untouchable  _god_.

A god who had won his trust. A god who had given him everything that he’d ever wanted in a father, and taken something that a father never should.

He feels sick.

“Bruce, is that such a good idea?” Oliver turns to look at him, blonde brows creasing together. “After --”

“I’ll be fine, Ollie. You’re all dismissed.”

* * *

 

Clark looks pleased. He looks up from his bed when the doors hiss open with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy, as if he’s delighted to speak to an old friend. Like  _nothing_  in the past six years had occurred.

Batman doesn’t speak. Bruce Wayne feels his heart thudding in his chest. Each pump a fresh burst of anger and adrenaline. 

“How about a trade, Bruce?” Clark spreads his hands, a charming smile transforming his handsome face from the brutal dictator to the symbol of hope he’d once been. “You tell me about my child, and I’ll tell you about yours.”

Something cold runs down his spine at those words, a sharp stab of  _panic_  in his mind that he does not allow onto his face or into his voice. 

“It isn’t your child,” he replies, the epitome of calm despite the rage roiling inside of him. “You merely played a part in it’s creation.”

“Oh,” Clark chuckles coldly. That smile doesn’t fade as he drops his eyes to the ground, his voice only softens. _Mocking_  him,  _pitying_  him. “Then by that logic, it isn’t even  _his,_ is it? Do you expect me to believe you’re not going to rip it from his arms the moment it’s out of his body? That isn’t your way, Bruce. You’ll take it and consider it repayment for the son he took from you.”

Those blue eyes lift and they are no longer amused. The malice in them is palpable, he believes every word he says. No doubt those had been said time and time again to the boy, peppered with gentle  _but one days_  and  _he can’t be angry forevers_. Driving home that he would never again be welcomed into the family, each and every word reinforced by the furious outcries of his allies and Dick’s other loved ones.

“How is it,” the prisoner asks, standing and stepping towards the glass, hand reaching out to press against it. “That you can’t even muster a human reaction now? I’m the  _alien_  here _,_ Bruce. Not you.”

(  _he isn’t wrong, bruce_. a voice suspiciously close to dick’s whispers in the back of his mind, his conscience even after all this time. we all told you _. we told you to forgive him. it was too much to put on a thirteen year old boy, but you never listened. now you want to take his son away from him? that’s cold. even for you._ )

He stays quiet. All it takes is a moment of that silence, that lack of reaction, for Clark to become incensed. To work himself up with the anger he felt - however warped and misplaced his affections had become, Bruce had no doubt that Damian had once served as a replacement for the boy that he should have had.

“For all your talk of mercy to the wicked, you can’t even spare a moment of  _humanity_ for your own child! Damian went to  _me_  instead of  _you_  and that kills you. He trusted  _me_  and not you. He would have killed  _you_  to save me without hesitation. I was more a father to him than you ever were.”

“You took advantage of a frightened and traumatized teenage boy for your own purposes,” the Batman’s eyes narrow but a fraction. “You weaponized his pain and turned it against me.”

“And yet I repaired the damage  _you_  did! He was  _happy_ , Bruce! When have  _you_  ever made him happy?”  The glass doesn’t so much as rattle at the force of his fist slamming into it. Clark looks upon him and the savior is gone, replaced instead with the tyrant.

“And then you killed his closest confidante and  _violated him_  at his most vulnerable,” he says, meeting Clark’s gaze unflinchingly. 

“He asked me to. He was in heat, he was  _sick_ , and he needed it.”

“He was delirious and  _frightened,_  and you were unaffected. You were trusted to care for him and instead you used him for your own selfish purposes. Damian was in no state to give consent to you. And even if he had been,” Bruce’s eyes flash menacingly. “I know my son well enough to know he never would have agreed to what you forced upon him.

“You aren’t a hero, Kal-El. If I hadn’t put you behind bars for the Regime, I would have put you behind bars for  _raping_  my son. You won’t see him or his child. They are no longer  _yours_  to toy with. There isn’t anything you can tell me about my son that I don’t already know.”

“How about where he is?”

“And why would you know where Damian is?”

Clark smiles again. “Who said anything about  _Damian_?”

There it is. The hand tipping too far, the moment the exchange has been won. 

Bruce searches his face for a long moment, then steps back. “I got what I came here for.”

“What?” He blinks in surprise. “You got what? To lord your superiority over me? You’re  _zero for four_  children, Bruce!”

Bruce turns and walks toward the door, cape swirling behind him as he went.

“You know,” Clark calls, his voice rising with his temper. “None of this would have happened if you’d just been a  _friend_ , Bruce! If you had just  _acted like a person_ , things would have been so much different.  If you’d  _joined us_  then none of this,  _none of it_ , would have gone this way!”

He stops short of the door. The hand at his side clenches tight.

Clark seems to take it as a victory.

“If you’d been able to  _bend_ then we could have made a utopia.”

“I was wrong to blame a grief-stricken  _child_  for being swayed by your message,” Bruce speaks softly, loud enough for Clark to hear. He turns back to face him, face voice of expression. Careful, measured steps bring him back towards the glass tower in the middle of the room, his exhausted features looking  _vengeful_   _under the light of the red sun._  “I was wrong to not forgive him the  _moment_  it happened. Just as I was wrong to neglect you when you so sorely needed a friend.

“Mistakes happened. We should have been better men,” he continues, absently tugging at the fingertip of a glove. The motion is slow, each movement exasperatingly careful. Slowly, inch by inch it comes free - revealing a darker glove with a woven green pattern sewn into the material. 

Kal-El’s eyes go wide. Recognizing it for what it is. His eyes roam from the kryptonite infused gloves to the sheath Bruce shifts his cape back to reveal, the hilt of a kryptonite blade plainly visible. The message clear. The danger of it impossible to ignore.

There would be no one who would blame him.

No one who would stop him.

“But were I capable of  _bending_ , I would have killed you the moment you confessed to  _raping_  my son and had the gall to call it  _mercy_.”

Bruce slams his fist against the glass, drawing his attention back to his face. Merciless navy blue eyes bore into the boyscout blue of the alien’s, and for the first time in years, Bruce lets the mask slip. The murderous intent shines clear, the  _want_  to do it - the only thing holding him back being the knowledge that once this line is crossed it cannot be  _uncrossed_. The war he wages with himself in that very moment, whether it was just and right to protect his son from what Clark might do, and whether he had the moral authority to do so.

Bruce tugs the glove back down, covering the dagger again. Stepping back again, he wastes no time in turning around and making for the door.

“So be thankful I don’t  _bend_ , Kal-El.”


	8. Chapter 8

On paper, they’re sending him to Kahndaq as an emissary. Black Adam had been a trusted ally who had lent Damian his ear and his skills time and time again during the Regime. It made sense to send someone who already had the trust and love of the King to draw him to Ra’s side. Damian is given his instructions - to remind him that the Earth needs them all to stand up and fight, now that Bruce has allowed the world to fall to shambles again.

But, in practice, he knows that this is simply to get him out of the way of the fighting. Adam will never agree to this plan, not when it would place his land squarely in harm’s way for a war he does not feel is his to fight. This is a thinly veiled excuse to shunt him aside until he’s delivered, perhaps even to keep him there in hiding until his -- Clark’s -- child is old enough to weaponize.

And he hates it.

The trip to Kahndaq is long and miserable when done by ship. He spends most of it sequestered in his quarters, sick beyond belief and loathing every second of it. By the time he arrives he’s more than ready to go to war himself to have the whole bloody thing over with.

The royal guard meets him at the gates. He’s in armor, the colors and insignia familiar and recognizable, but it’s not his usual set. The waist has been expanded, and this isn’t meant for mobility and fighting. It’s a defensive set, to mitigate the damage taken as much as possible when its wearer can’t strike back. 

Even that aside, he looks a mess. His broken arm is set in a cast, his hair shaggy and disheveled. He’s far from, the arrogant child he was the last time he stormed these shores, and the fact that the guardsmen notice is enough to set his teeth. 

They say nothing. They lead him to the palace instead.

* * *

 

“Nightwing,” Black Adam greets from atop his throne.  This isn’t his first visit to Kahndaq, but the... unique decor always takes him aback. It seems caught in ages long passed, with all the terrible trappings that mankind had long moved past.

He’s not here to judge their interior decorating, though.

“Black Adam.”  Damian crosses the floor and kneels before him, a rare show of respect he’d offer to no other. Not even for the sake of diplomacy. Adam was a two-bit dictator when Damian didn’t like him, and a damn fine king when he did. Perspective was key. 

“What brings you to Kahndaq, Damian?”

“I’m here on behalf of my grandfather, Ra’s al Ghul.”

“And what does the Demon’s Head want from me?”

Damian looks up. “You and I have fought side by side. I know you to be a man of honor, and commitment. I know you will do anything to protect Kahndaq.”

The God’s eyes narrow. “Are you threatening me?”

“A war is being fought.”

“No war is coming to Kahndaq’s borders.”

“The coming disaster doesn’t recognize borders. The planet itself is changing --  _dying_. Every life is in danger. The planet is warming and life itself will be scorched from it unless we take action.”

“If there is a war, then why are  _you_  not fighting?”

“Because I am one man, and  _you_  are more. You could win this war for us, for your home.” Damian takes a breath, shifting his arm so the King can take in the sight for himself. “Unfortunately, I am... injured, and my condition prevents me from fighting.”

“Your condition?” A beat. Black Adam leans forward in his throne, his gaze dropping to Damian’s belly. “I see. Is it Kal-El’s?” 

“Yes, sir.”

 _What_? The voice comes from his left, near the windows. Behind a pillar. Damian’s gaze shifts to her, catching only the briefest glimpse of golden hair ducking behind the pillar, but Adam is moving. Looking down at him. For a moment he isn’t sure how this is going to go, and he’s in no condition to fight a man blessed with the powers of the gods themselves.

“Your father would sink so low as to harm his own pregnant child. The Batman truly has no honor.  Come, Damian. Rise.”

Adam offers him a hand to stand. One he takes, not because it’s the polite thing to do but because he isn’t certain he can stand without the help. The older man’s eyes drop to the fit of the armor, something dawning in them before Damian can say it. 

“I will arrange a place for you to sleep, and I will send my best physicians to come attend to you and your child’s needs,” he puts an arm around Damian’s shoulders, leading him to the doors.

“I appreciate it. It'll be good to catch up, a lot’s happened since we last saw each other, I-” he cuts himself off, pretending to stumble. A tiny bug slips from between his fingers, disappears within the fibers of the plush carpet.

Adam, to his credit, looks sufficient concerned. Too much to notice the deception. His grip tightens to steady him, ensuring that he won’t fall. 

“Perhaps you’d best visit the infirmary first.”

“No, I’m alright. It’s been difficult. I’m managing. Just point to my quarters and I’ll be out of your hair.”

“I’ll have the guards escort you.” Adam keeps a supportive arm around him, leading him towards the gates until one of his guards can assist. It’s a show of weakness Damian would never have allowed before, even feigned, but this pregnancy has its uses.

They lead him to his quarters. He parts, gives thanks, and lays down on the bed. Black Adam has a tendency to murmur to himself when he believes he’s all alone, but that nonsense isn’t what he wants to hear.

There’s a set of footsteps after the heavy doors swing shut. Slow and tentative, stepping out from behind the pillar.

“He saw me.”  A voice, female. Hesitant and unfamiliar, an accent he doesn’t recognize coloring her words.

“Yes.” Adam. Thick with disapproval.

“Does he have abilities? Like us?”

“He has no powers. But he is formidable.”

“That boy. Was he telling the truth? If so, you must listen to him if your planet is--”

“No.”

“I... I mean no disrespect, you’ve been nothing but kind to me. But Adam, I watched my planet  _die._ You do not know what you speak of.”

“I know what I speak of. I am very old, and you are very young and new to this world--”

“And I watched my world  _die._ If you have the capacity to change it, don’t just stand by. Don’t accept it happening to yours when you have the power to save it.”

A beat of silence.

“Is... Is his father really Batman?”

Adam sighs. “Yes... But there is no love there. Damian fought against him and sided with your cousin. And more, apparently. And for it, his father imprisoned him.”

“That’s... That’s awful. But... The pregnancy, I thought that he was -”

“Male?” Adam’s voice is soft, understanding. “He is. That boy is what’s known as an omega. Unlike your planet, Earth’s sex and gender spectrum is vast and varied. It’s one of many things you don’t yet understand, so please - stay your tongue from further argument. Return to your room, and stay there until he is gone. Please. For your own good. Damian must not learn of you, or know who you are.”

Damian smirks faintly, dropping his hand from his earpiece to rest against the bed.

* * *

 

Seven months pregnant is seven months too many, as far as he’s concerned. The physicians give him a thorough once over, administer shots and vitamins and all the other nonsense that his mother’s team neglected to do. They were war surgeons, after all - what did they know about what an expectant parent of a human-alien hybrid needed? They could only fix what was already broken.

They list the problems that he’s to face - the fetus might be stronger than his body as it enters the last stages of development. Their blood types may be incompatible. His own blood pressure - high, dangerously so - could lead to its own terrible set of consequences. High risk doesn’t even begin to cover it. They order him to strict bedrest, probably for the remainer of his pregnancy. 

Of course, he doesn’t listen.

Damian is up and moving the moment they’re gone. There are few secrets that Kahndaq has, and fewer still that he cares about. But Adam’s mystery guest? Something that he doesn’t want even a former Regime member to know about? That doesn’t add up. What has Adam been hiding, what could be so monumentous that he’d keep from a former ally?

Many things, probably. But not a person. Damian steals through the hallways, quiet as a mouse. Snatches of meetings and secrets tumble from unaware mouths, but he doesn’t care. That’s not what he’s interested in now.

He finds her at the top of the tower. A modern-day Rapunzel - fine and beautiful in the glow of the setting sun. Her expression is melancholy and distant. He doesn’t allow her to hear the sound of his approach.

“Hello,” he calls, startling the girl before him.  She turns, raising a fist and turning as if ready to fight, and all he can do is his hand up in a show of peace. “Hey, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

There’s something familiar about her face. It’s soft, and kind in a way he hasn’t seen in some time. Her golden hair reaches her shoulder blades, and her eyes are a rich and familiar blue. There’s something honest about them, even as she regards him with distrust and fear. So open and unexpectedly trusting. She recognizes him from the hall, that much he can tell. Lowering her hand, she clears her throat and tries to appear unaffected by his sudden appearance.

“How... Did you do that? How did you just appear?”

Damian smirks. “It’s a skill that runs in the family.”

“Your father,” she starts, stops and then, hesitantly.  “The Batman?”

“That’s him.”

“Adam has told me of his evil.” Sympathy fills those big blue eyes, the sympathy he doesn’t like and wants absolutely no part of. But this, like everything else, is something he can use. “Has he hurt you?”

“Yeah.” He lets out a short laugh, a  _ha._  “In all sorts of ways. One day, I’ll make a very lucky therapist a millionaire.”

The joke is lost on her. “I... Don’t understand, but no one should be able to hide from me.”

“Oh? And why is that?” He takes a step closer, head cocking to the side. “Who  _are_  you? I -”

He gets no further. The deafening crash of thunder cuts him off, followed by the hand of an angry king around his throat. Black Adam’s eyes are murderous, to be disobeyed in his own kingdom is the highest dishonor. 

Damian tries to keep his expression light and unthreatened. He swallows despite the grip. “That was loud.”

“You are supposed to be in your  _room_ , Damian,” the God hisses through grit teeth, fingers flexing. A warning. The girl takes a step forward.

“I went for a walk. Who is she?”

“I welcomed you to Kahndaq, but my hospitality extends  _only so far_.”

“ _Who is she, Adam_?”

“No one you need to concern yourself with,” Adam snarls, his hand dropping from Damian’s throat to grip the front of his armor. That’s all the warning he gives before he hauls the boy off of his feet, dangling him over the edge of the building. “And if you persist in asking,  _you will be no one too!”_

 _It’s a threat_. Plain and simple. If he intended to kill him, Damian knows he’d simply have been dropped. The message is clear, and the threat transparent, but --

but the girl doesn’t know that. She leaps for them despite his frantic shout of  _no_ , certain that she’s to fall and plummet to her death over a pointless show of force.

But she doesn’t.

She muscles Adam aside, her grip - strong, inhumanly so - around him is solid. There’s nothing holding her up. Damian glances to her face, to the searing red glow of her eyes, and it dawns on him.

She’s Kryptonian.

Black Adam’s furious gaze bores into them both. “What have you done?”

 

* * *

 

 

Mr and Mrs Kent greet the Justice League with warm cookies and hot tea. Alone and isolated, they’re safe from the wrath of the rest of the world. Bruce knows that the media hasn’t stopped looking for someone to blame for what happened, and rather than accepting that sometimes good men go wrong, the blame for Superman’s actions is shifted to his elderly parents.

They have nowhere to call home but here now.

What a lonely and terrible existence.

But he isn’t here to liberate them of it. Not yet. His target today is someone else Clark had failed, driven to isolation to protect himself and his ego. The Teen Titans are alive, and if he’s right, they’re in the Phantom Zone.

Yet another secret his son had surely kept from him. Something he can’t allow himself to dwell on, not now. Not when he hasn’t settled yet on how he views the boy - as a monster, or a victim. 

The Plastic Men delve into the portal. Bruce waits with arms crossed, Barbara at his side. And for several long, agonizing moments all they can do is stare and hope for the best.

The Teen Titans stumble out of the portal, blinking at the brightness of the world as if they’d never seen it before.

“I’m snagged,” Plastic Man says, and Bruce pushes Tim aside to deal with that first - though his hands tremble the faintest bit at the contact. There’s no time to be overwhelmed. A hunk of Kryptonite is shoved into the portal, the barriers around it activating. Together, with the aid of the newly freed Titans, they manage to haul him free and close the portal.

They miss General Zod’s angry howl. They miss the beam that should have struck them dead.

Then, and only then, does Bruce turn to draw his second eldest child into a tight embrace.

“I knew you’d come for us,” Tim whispers, clutching his cape for dear life.

“He did,” Starfire says fondly. “He said it all the time.”

To the left of them, Wonder Girl relays the severity of Superboy’s situation to the rest of the team. There’s nothing they can do about that yet -- it has to wait until they can find a means to repair his heart. Worst case scenario, there option of an unclaimed Lazarus Pit is on the table.

“Where’s Dick?” Starfire asks, roughly the same time that Tim notes Bruce’s missing shadow and asks, “where’s Damian?”

He doesn’t have an answer. He merely pulls his still living child back into his arms, and holds him tight.

* * *

It’s about a day later when her shadow darkens his doorstep. He’s confined to his quarters, laid up in the softest bed he’s ever slept in. Black Adam’s disapproval is passive-aggressive, but his ire is shortlived. He’s thumbing through a book, propped up on goose feather pillows and covered in the softest silk sheets.

It’d be almost peaceful if it wasn’t for the noise of the medical equipment.

If only all people could be this hospitable to their ‘hostages’.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to talk to me, princess,” he says, not looking up.

“Well... It’s like you said before. He isn’t my father, is he?” Kara takes a seat on the edge of his bed, frowning at the equipment surrounding it. “Are you alright? Adam... He went too far, but he didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“It takes a lot more than that to hurt me,” Damian replies, letting his head drop back against the pillows. “This is a high risk condition. They’re just taking precautions.”

“Oh...” Kara fidgets. Opens her mouth, shuts it, and then speaks again. “Do you... Were you and my cousin together? Adam never mentioned... He only said Wonder Woman was, I...”

“No.” 

“Oh.” The question hangs in the air, unspoken.

He takes mercy.

“Your cousin was affected by my heat. It was a slip up in both our judgments. We aren’t like this. And I only wanted to carry it to term for his sake, so he wouldn’t be the last one,” he shuts his eyes, folding his arm over his face. “And now there are going to be three of you. We aren’t mates. He’s more a father than anything else.”

“He was affected by your heat?”

“Most alphas are. Even the strongest of them go weak in the head when they get a whiff of an omega in heat. Instincts overrule everything else.”

There’s another awkward stretch of silence. Kara shifts closer, and Damian lowers his arm to get a look at her. Confusion is evident on her face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m sorry. What exactly is a heat?”

Damian frowns, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “It’s... It’s a heat. It’s the period where someone is... fertile.  Did you miss this talk when your planet exploded?”

She doesn’t flinch. She just stares at him, frown deepening. “... We don’t have that. Not in that sense, I don’t think. He smelled you and...?”

“And I don’t really want to discuss this with his  _cousin.”_

“Sorry. I... I was just curious, Damian. I didn’t mean to pry.”

Something coils in the pit of his stomach. Something that feels an awful lot like  _doubt_. He turns away from her, and she lingers for a moment longer before she gets the message and rises to her feet, excusing herself from his quarters with a soft apology.

* * *

“That doesn’t... Look, I was never Damian’s biggest fan, but that doesn’t sound like him,” Tim says quietly, after the story has been told and all that’s left is to sort through the pieces. The new 'cave' is unsettling, lacking any of the familarity of the manor - but from what he's heard, Damian burned that down in a fit of rage. “He loved Dick more than anybody else, why would he --”

“It was an accident,” Bruce replies, his voice low. Something like regret trickles down his spine, remembering that moment. What he should have done, and what he did instead. “I handled it... poorly. I left him open, and vulnerable, and Clark took advantage.”

“In more ways than one,” Barbara mutters. He doesn’t look at her, he simply feels the weight of her disappointment. “Damian’s in Kahndaq, and he’s due soon. I imagine once he’s had time to recover we’ll have to deal with him again.”

“You think?” Tim glances at her. 

“Have you ever known him to sit still for long?” She offers him a weak half-smile. “Ra’s has his claws in him now. Damian will be on the move the second he’s well enough... I don’t know how we’re going to diffuse this.”

“He still needs to serve his time,” Bruce cuts in, but no one voices their support. “I can’t forgive the deaths.”

“That’s a double standard. Harleen’s still walking free,” Tim points out. “From everything you’d told me this isn’t his fault. Clark groomed him. Damian is a terror and a brat, but he’s a good kid. Dick-”

“Is dead.”

“ _Dick_  believed the best in him, and Damian was best with him around.” Tim is quiet for a moment, drumming his fingers against the arm of the chair. “And... Let's face it, Damian got a lot worse when you were back in the picture.”

For a long moment, Bruce says nothing. The conversation grinds to a halt, the tension palpable. Once, he would have ignored it. Allowed his silence to speak for him, that he had nothing to answer to and no reason to prove himself. Now, he clears his throat. He keeps his eyes ahead, adjusting his hands on the controls. “What do you mean?”

“He... Well,” Tim pauses. It dawns on him that perhaps this was an open secret, one he’d never been privy to. “When Dick was Batman, between him and Alfred, they had Damian functioning like a regular kid. He had a bedtime, he did homework, and chores, he played video games, he had strict tv times - and if you cut into his time with Dick for any reason, he’d throw a tantrum. He was actually acting a little kid. The last thing I remember being discussed was getting a dog. And... When you came back, he lost a lot of that. He was back to acting like a soldier.”

The dog.

He remembered Dick saying that, on the way out. When they were fighting about his place as Batman and the worth of Batman Inc. He could picture it, clear as day - Damian perched in the stairwell, watching with an unreadable expression as the two of them shouted at each other. Two alphas in close quarters rarely works out, they try to dominate each other and burn out.

Dick had wanted to get Damian a pet. To help cope with the loneliness. And Bruce, remembering the bodies of stray bats in the Batcave when Damian had first arrived in the mansion, had told him no. Damian couldn’t be trusted.

Damian had heard. Damian had said nothing. He’d merely stood up from where he’d been standing, made enough noise for them to hear, and retreated to his room. Dick had gone after him,  _he didn’t mean it, Damian_ , but Bruce hadn’t followed.

Because he had.

Now, he stares stoically ahead. Realizing how truly little he’d understood about his youngest son. Had Damian ever thrived under Talia’s parenting? He’d thought that he’d needed to use force to teach him, that he had to be corrected with the brutality he’d been raised with -- but had he been reinforcing the wrong thing all along?

“... Do you think he’ll ever forgive me?”

Tim looks at him for a long, long moment. Objectively, he had the easiest time as Robin. He’d been young, and eager, and carried none of the baggage his siblings had. Dick had been the first and had endured all the missteps, but Tim had been second. Jason had come third, suffering from baggage that Bruce had never been equipped to deal with. But he’d sidestepped most of those pitfalls with Tim, hadn’t he? 

... Hadn’t he?

Finally, Tim leans back, looking down at the map instead. “I can’t speak for him, Bruce. But I think he wants to come home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the long wait! 
> 
> i waffled really hard on whether or not to keep with canon and kill tim off or to let him live and landed on him being alive. well, alive for now.


End file.
